Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #32 of Genesis, chapter 24, and we are going to read Genesis 24:37-38:

And my master made me swear, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife to my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I dwell: But thou shalt go unto my father's house, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son.

We were talking about these verses in the last study, and we saw that Abraham was giving very detailed instruction and specific directions for his servant to follow when he sent him to find a wife.  And that is exactly what God did when God the Father sent God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and when the Lord Jesus Christ sent His body of believers.  The Father gave the Son very precise, detailed information that He was to find these certain people, and the Son, in turn, gave the same information to His disciples, who were part of these people, and they were to specifically go to a certain people, and not to go to another certain people.

That may sound surprising to you because we have been accustomed to thinking that the Gospel was for everyone.  In a sense it was because the Gospel had to go to everyone (possible) and be carried into all the nations, but it was not for everyone.  Actually, it was specifically for a certain, very definite set of people because the bride had to come from a people that were God’s own “kindred.”  And these would be His kindred through the atoning work of Christ performed on their behalf before the foundation of the world, which would cause them to have a special relationship to God, unlike others in the world whose sins were not laid upon the Lord and paid for at the foundation of the world (or at any other point).  This is the reason that the Lord Jesus Christ said what He did when He encountered a woman from the land of Canaan.  It is very interesting.  It says in Matthew 15:22-23:

And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.

You see, she was a Canaanite, and Abraham had said, “Do not take a daughter for a wife to my son of the people of the land of the Canaanites.”  It is basically the same principle here.  Jesus was not listening to her.  He was following God’s direction not to involve Himself with the Canaanites, but it goes on to say in Matthew 15:24:

But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

This really seems to confirm the whole idea that He was not going to help the Canaanite woman, but that He was only looking for “lost Jews.”  That is who He came for, we would think, if we were reading the Bible with the historical, grammatical, and literal interpretation, that Christ was chiefly, if not solely, looking for Jewish people, the physical descendants of Abraham.

But then it goes on to say in Matthew 15:25-28:

Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

We should realize that Christ’s healing of her daughter and accepting her petition on her daughter’s behalf is a picture of salvation.  And her daughter would have been a Canaanite, too, and this woman that was said to have great faith was certainly one of God’s elect.  Christ saved her.  How is that possible, if we are not to go to the Canaanites, but only to the children of Israel?  It is possible when we understand the definition of a “Jew.”  It is not the Webster’s Dictionary definition or a worldly natural-minded definition that we get from most theologians, but it is the Bible’s definition or God’s own definition, which He tells us in Romans 2.  I will read this because it is so important, and it helps us to understand an enormous number of Bible verses that refer to Israel or Jews, and so forth.  It says in Romans 2:28-29:

For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

This means that a true Jew is not the physical descendant of Abraham that is circumcised in the flesh.  That is not necessarily a “true Jew,” although he could be if he is one of God’s elect.  Then he is circumcised in heart and born again in spirit, and he is then part of spiritual Israel and counted for the seed.  Christ is the seed (singular) and His elect are counted for the seed in Christ and are descendants of Abraham by faith or by Christ. 

And this is why in the encounter with the Canaanite woman, Jesus did save her and did heal her daughter.  It was because she was a “true Jew” and she was one of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, despite the fact that she was not a physical Jew.  He was a spiritual Jew and that is who Jesus was sent for, the whole company of the elect, - Jew or Gentile, male or female.  The elect were scattered among the nations of the world, and these were all the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  And, of course, God had found the last of those elect sheep by May 21, 2011, completing His salvation program and ending the search.  That is why the door is shut now.  There are no more sheep to be brought into the kingdom.  All that were to be brought in have been brought in.

Again, Jesus said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  Who sent Him?  The Father sent Him, as it says in John 17:18:

As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

There is the “chain of command.”  God the Father sent the Son.  Jesus was sent into the world to find the lost sheep of the house of Israel and to recover them.  And then we read in Matthew 10:5-6:

These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Again, “Go not into the way of the Gentiles,” just as the servant of Abraham was told not to take a daughter of the Canaanites, but to go to Abraham’s kindred and the land of his heritage.  So, too, the Lord Jesus followed that direction, and then He commanded His people to do the same and to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  That is why in the day of salvation, God’s people were always sent to find the “nations of them which are saved,” and once that last lost sheep was found and safely brought into the fold, the Great Commission was finished as was commanded in Matthew 28:19: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”  It was fulfilled because the “nations of them which are saved” were taught and baptized – all of them.  No – it is not the nations of the world.  That is another matter and it was incidental, but the Gospel had to be shared indiscriminately.  As we handed out Bible tracts, we would say, “Here, would you like a tract?  And would you like a tract?”  We would give 100 people a tract, and maybe none of them were of the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Or, we would give 1,000 tracts, and maybe five were elect, but it was always God’s desire and plan for us to share the seed widely so that it would fall upon the hearts of His people eventually, and then He would take it from there.  But our goal and aim was always the elect, and that is the reason we do not go out to sow the seed any longer.  There is still a world of billions of people, so why do we not go out and share the Gospel with them, encouraging them to beseech the Lord?  It is because the Great Commission is over – it is ended.  There are no more lost sheep and, therefore, we are not sent into the world for that particular purpose.

Now we are sent with a second great commission and another definite purpose, which is to feed the sheep.  And, once again, we have to do the same thing and share it with everyone.  Just as we did not know those whom God would save, we now do not know those whom God did save, so it is the only way to do it.  There is no way to pinpoint the Gospel message only for the elect: “I am only here to feed sheep.”  In the land of India, maybe God saved twenty million people, but there are a billion people.  Or, in the land of China, maybe God saved forty million people, but there are over a billion people, so how are we going to find them?  We cannot know, so we just publish material in the Chinese language.  We try to publish in all the languages of India that we can, and we try to get the message to them as best we are able, and then allow God to take it from there and feed His people according to His will.  And He will do it, because it is Christ that is giving us the direction for this time: “Feed my sheep.”  It is the purpose of God, so God will accomplish it.  I do not know how He is doing it, but He will do it because He would not give a task like this without accomplishing it.

So let us go back to Genesis 24:39-40:

And I said unto my master, Peradventure the woman will not follow me. And he said unto me, JEHOVAH, before whom I walk, will send his angel with thee, and prosper thy way; and thou shalt take a wife for my son of my kindred, and of my father's house:

Here, we see that the servant did not go alone, but the angel of JEHOVAH was with him.  That is what Abraham had told him: “JEHOVAH, before whom I walk, will send his angel with thee.”  We could say the same thing of the day of salvation.  When the people of God were sent forth, Christ went with us.  And we saw this.  How could the message of May 21, 2011 as Judgment Day spread, explode and reach as many people as it did?  It was only because God was with us.  God was with His people to seek, to find and to save those sheep, and He accomplished those things.  He was able to bring the “bride” back to the Son or Himself, and we were involved in that process.  Remember the verses that reveal a lot about how God operates and uses His people: “How beautiful are the feet of them,” the true believers, and “How beautiful are the feet of Him,” the Lord Jesus Christ.  Eliezer was a picture of both the body of Christ and of Christ Himself.

And Jesus is the “angel of JEHOVAH,” and that can be shown from the Bible.  So the Lord was with His people.  You know, this is being foretold through Abraham: “JEHOVAH, before whom I walk, will send his angel with thee, and prosper thy way; and thou shalt take a wife for my son of my kindred, and of my father's house.”  In other words, “You will take a wife and your way will prosper because God will bless it.  This is of God, and God is almighty, and God accomplishes His will.”  He is able to perform the doing of it, although we may struggle with it from time to time.  We may experience all kinds of setbacks and problems and delays, and we wonder how things are going to get done, but God always gets it done, and He does the thing that He said He would do. 

This is also indicating God’s predestination program.  He predestinated to save a people.  He called them all by name.  He loved them with an everlasting love, and He named the ones He would save before the foundation of the world,  and at the point of the foundation of the world their sins were laid upon Christ and Christ died for them, and it all became guaranteed.  It all became a “sure thing,” as it says in Titus 1:2:

In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

God, who cannot lie has promised.  And when did He promise?  It was before the world was.  It was predestination, as He chose a people for Himself.  He selected the bride, so it was guaranteed that when the Gospel eventually went forth in time, it would be prosperous, and the “woman” would obey and go with the servant, as the elect would respond to the Gospel and the irresistible call of the Word of God through the grace of God.  No one could resist the drawing power of Almighty God and the power of His Word as it grabbed hold of a sinner until He brought him to Himself in salvation.  This was the case very time in the life of an elect, eventually.  At some point in his life (from the womb to the point of death), God would save him, and it would be accomplished.  It was fulfilled and done. 

We saw an example of that earlier in the book of Genesis when God told Noah before the ark was built, in Genesis 6.  It says in Genesis 6:18-19:

But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female

This was before the ark was even built, and He was already listing exactly who would be going into the ark.  It was Noah, his wife, his sons and his sons’ wives.  We will not read it, but you can read in chapter 7 that these were exactly the ones that did go into the ark over 120 years later, and nobody else.  They were predestinated by God.  They were foreordained, and He predetermined that these eight souls would be delivered and survive the flood by entering into the ark.  And God has done the same thing in the world with His elect people.  He had chosen them before.

Let us go back to Genesis 24:41

Then shalt thou be clear from this my oath, when thou comest to my kindred; and if they give not thee one, thou shalt be clear from my oath.

We spent some time talking about this when it came up earlier in the chapter.  To be “clear” means to be guiltless.  Abraham was telling him, “If you do what I say and follow my instructions, and you go to my father’s house and ask for a wife for my son Isaac, but if they do not give you one, then you will not bear the guilt.  It is not your fault.”  Of course, this is indicating that God’s people were to declare forth the Word of God, the Gospel, to all the world, and if there was no response, it was not their fault.  I am talking about a “true response,” as there has always been a response to the Word of God by some that was not true: “Many are called, but few are chosen.”  But if the few that were chosen did not respond, then we would be clear; we would bear no responsibility.  We had done our duty and done what we were called on to do.  And what were we called upon to do?  In Acts 20, the Apostle Paul is speaking, and we are told that he is an example and a pattern of those that would believe, so he is really representing the people of God, and it says in Acts 20:25-27:

And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.

So he was “pure” from the blood of all men; that is, he was “clear” and “guiltless.”  Why?  It was because he told the whole truth.  He declared the whole counsel of God to whomever would listen, and that is all anyone can do who is one of God’s servants.  We share what the Bible says, the truth that the Lord has opened up to our understanding.  We share it and declare it, and we do not leave anything out.  That is one thing we see with Abraham’s servant, do we not?  He is telling the whole story.  He is not leaving anything out, is he?  He is telling the whole story, right from the beginning when Abraham gave him the assignment, and right up to the present.  It is the whole counsel of God.  And, we, God’s people, have been declaring the whole counsel of God, and this would mean that when God unsealed the Scriptures and brought forth that information, it had to be declared.  It was a necessity.  It was a must that there be the declaration about the end of the church age, about Christ having paid for sin at the foundation of the world, about the doctrine of hell, and regarding the appointed Day of Judgment on May 21, 2011, and all else that the Lord opened to our understanding at that time, so the trumpet could give a “certain sound.” 

And we have done this.  You know, there have been people since May 21, 2011 passed and since it happened on a spiritual level, that for the most part see things in a natural way because they have a natural mind, and they say, “Are you going to apologize and say you are sorry?”  Sorry for what?  They are trying to place guilt or some wrong upon God’s elect, but God’s elect did what God would have us to do.  We learned information from the Bible, and we declared it all.  We shunned nothing, as Paul said, “I have not shunned to declare…”  We held nothing back. If we had shunned to declare, we would have held things back, and that would have been wrong.  That would have meant we did not love our neighbors as we should.  But we did love our neighbors, and we loved all, so we declared all we knew.  Feel guilty?  No way – absolutely not; we are clear of the blood of all men, because it was through that message that people took warning if they were God’s elect.  And God used that message to save everyone whose name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

Well, we have to stop here due to lack of time, and we will look at this more in our next Bible study.