Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #34 of Genesis, chapter 24, and we are going to read Genesis 24:48:

And I bowed down my head, and worshipped JEHOVAH, and blessed JEHOVAH God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son.

I will stop reading there.  The servant (who was likely Eliezer) was completing the telling of his errand by recounting the story: “And I bowed down my head, and worshipped JEHOVAH, and blessed JEHOVAH God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son.”  That is, he was led to find the bride, and God led His people in the right way to send forth the Gospel in the day of salvation during the Great Tribulation period until that salvation program was completed and the last of the elect from the great multitude was saved out of great tribulation.  God accomplished the finishing touches on His beautiful masterpiece of His magnificent salvation program.  It was all done under the leadership and guidance of God the Holy Spirit working within His people, because He would not go in person.  He was not there as He was in the first century, but the Spirit of God was with His people, and He directed them in the right way to understand the Bible throughout the history of the church age and into the Great Tribulation and, now, into the Day of Judgment.

We can be absolutely certain and without doubt that we are going “the right way.”  And, you know, that is the most important bit of knowledge to have because what value is it when people develop a plan and they put all their energy and time, pouring out their very life into accomplishing their plan, if it is not in “the right way.”  They may say, “We are going to do things as diligently as we can according to this plan,” but if that plan is not according to “the right way,” then it is the wrong way, and it leads down a path that does not lead to life, to glory and to honor.  Therefore, it is not a good way, and everything they were involved with from the beginning of their life to the end of their life (and everything in between) has been wasted.  It has been empty, as Solomon declared as he was moved by the Holy Spirit in the book of Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”  It is all vanity: all the work, all the labor, all the building, all the art, and everything you can name of the world and for the purpose of serving the world.  It is all an utter waste of time, a complete waste of time, and a waste of opportunity and resources. 

So knowing the path that we are on is “the right way” is essential.  It is the most important thing there is, and God’s people are able to know because of what the Bible tells us.  We are going to go over this and spend some time in this, and just see what is “the right way” that the servant Eliezer refers to, and what the Bible has to say about it.

A couple of verses that helps us to evaluate the way we are going and the way we see the world going are found in Matthew 7:13-14:

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Here, God is putting forth two ways.  One is broad, and the other is narrow.  We wonder, “Why only two ways?”  It seems when we look around in the world and hear all the different philosophies, religions and the many ideas people have concerning what is the right way and best way to live, we would think there should be a vast selection, like when you walk down the supermarket aisle and you have all the options.  But, no, there are only two options.  One is said to be a wide gate and a broad way, and practically every city has a street called “Broadway.”  It is normally right downtown, and it is nice and wide.  But, here, God identifies this wide gate and broad way as leading to destruction, and He tells us, “…and many there be which go in thereat.”  On the other hand, there is a narrow gate and narrow way that leads to life, and only few find it.

So, again, we are going to take some time because this is an important topic to think about, and to see what the Bible has to say about these two ways.

First, let us think about the broad way and the wide gate.  We could start at the bottom; that is, the path way that is certain to lead to destruction and which gives no hope for those that are actively following it.  And they even know it, because it is the “way” of the atheist, or the way of the agnostic that says, “Well, I do not know if there is a God.”  Basically, he is living his life as an atheist, but he is not quite ready to commit to that.  And this way of life is fatalistic, and it is as foolish as anything could be because the heavens and the creation itself testify that there is a God, on a daily basis.  Everything we see around us is declaring that there is a God.  And there is a willful suppression in holding back this knowledge that atheists engage in as they say, “Oh, there is no God because I cannot see Him.”  And they like to talk about fantasy books and link fantasy books to the Bible: “You may as well believe in elves and fairies and things like that.” 

They think they are intelligent people and they “know it all,” and they have it all figured out.  But what they do no know, which is a very basic truth, is that they cannot prove God exists by looking at the natural world around them because God has held them back from perceiving Him.  Remember, the Bible tells us, “Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself.”  It is God’s will to hide Himself from unsaved man, so the atheist does not perceive God.  Obviously, if God does not want someone to perceive Him, they will not.  Therefore, they perceive there is no God.  They try to base their conclusion on so-called scientific evidence and their intellect, but what it really comes down to is summed up in this verse in 1Corinthians 1:20-21:

Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

Did you hear that in verse 21?  I will read it again: “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God…”  The fact is that there are atheists and a growing number of people that believe that things started with the “big bang,” something they cannot explain.  It is really a ridiculous theory that they proclaim as fact, and it would take more faith to believe in that than it does to believe in the truth of the Word of God.  And they do believe by faith, because there is no way they can prove what they say happened billions of years ago, so it is all by faith.  That is why it is “the way” of the atheist, and “the way” of the secularists, and “the way” of the natural man to conclude that there is no God and everything we see in the creation, including man and all the creatures, are just a result of natural processes given sufficient amounts of time; that is, they always add billions of years to the “formula,” because if they said that chickens turn into dinosaurs or frogs turn into princes, we would see it as ridiculous, but add billions and billions of years, and then it is all feasible and possible due to the element of huge amounts of time.  That is supposed to be the convincing factor.  But, no, it is a foolish thing.  So it is true that God has made foolish the wisdom of the world.  This is the world’s wisdom, which tells us all we need to know about the world’s wisdom – that it is not wise at all.

But God’s wisdom is Wisdom.  He is most wise: “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God.”  In other words, this was all a part of God’s plan.  You know, we might become frustrated by all these foolish theories like evolution, and so forth, but in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God.  God is allowing them to hold to these things and believe these things in order to hide Himself from them: ““Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself.”  So God is permitting the atheists, the agnostics and the secularists and all unsaved individuals to go along with their comfortable feeling that they have wisdom and they have intelligence and they have it all figured out, when, in fact, it is by the wisdom of God that they have been blinded from these things.  They are kept in the dark, and they are ignorant of His existence and ignorant of spiritual things.

The Bible teaches us that God is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible, so there is a creation that we can see in the visible realm, and that is in the physical realm of existence in this world and this universe.  We can see the sun, moon, stars, earth, trees, rocks, rivers, insects, animals and people.  There is a vast array of living life forms that God has created that are all part of things that are visible and part of this creation that God has created.  But He has also created things that are invisible.  Let me read a verse that tells us that, and it also tells us that Jesus is the Creator.  It says in Colossians 1:13-17:

Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

The natural-minded person in the world is part of the visible creation and is able to perceive and see the visible creation, so they acknowledge it: “This exists.”  And they try to reason in natural ways of understanding regarding how it could come to exist, and that is where we get their ridiculous theory of the “big bang.”  It all just exploded.  They go back billions and billions of years and there was “something” that exploded.  And to shoot their theory down and show how ridiculous it is, just ask them, “Where did that ‘something’ that exploded come from?”    They are getting to the point where they are ready to admit (but not quite yet) that they have not figured that out yet, because they know the only answer is “eternal matter.”  That is, there had to be some kind of eternal matter or substance or being that has always existed from everlasting and which never had a beginning.  And you can hear how similar that it to the “everlasting God” who had no beginning.   It must be one or the other.  It is either everlasting God, an intelligent Almighty Being that possessed the power to create, or it was some “blob” of unintelligent mass or substance that has always been, mysteriously.  And why would that have an everlasting existence? 

That is why they do not want to admit it.  You know, these are smart people in their physical minds.  They are not smart in spiritual things, but they are very smart when it comes to natural things, and they can see the foolishness and the fact that it makes no sense, so they hold off on that, but that is ultimately what they are going to have to acknowledge if they are ever going to lay out whatever it is they are going to lay out.  But they are trying to prove a natural means or physical means of existence because that is all they can perceive and all they will accept.

And, yet, God said here that He created things in heaven, but He also called Himself “the invisible God,” and God is a Spirit.  That is why He is invisible – spiritual things are invisible things.  You have a soul.  I have a soul.  I cannot see your soul.  You cannot see my soul.  They are invisible.  The Bible speaks of angelic beings or angels, and the fallen angelic beings (Satan and his demons), and they are all invisible.  The Bible speaks of the kingdom of heaven, and it is a real and genuine kingdom of a vast domain, but it lies in the spiritual realm and, therefore, it is invisible to us.  We can only perceive and understand with our physical eyes the things that are part of this creation.  We cannot see invisible things, of course.  They are invisible to our physical eyes, but the mistake the atheists and secularists make is to conclude, “Because I cannot perceive these things the Bible says are spiritual and lie in an invisible realm of existence, therefore they do not exist.” 

But how can they say that?  God is a God that hides Himself.  God is a Spirit, and He tells us that He has made invisible things.  And we know that since God’s Spirit is within us, there is a part of us that is very mysterious and invisible, and we know that these things are proclaimed throughout the Bible.  So who is man to say that there is no spiritual realm?  Basically, he is saying, “There is nothing other than what I can see,” although many allow for “aliens” that are out there in the physical creation in deep space, but they will not acknowledge another realm of existence.  And that is foolish, but it is also because God has limited that person to only the physical realm of existence.

Man disobeyed God back in the Garden of Eden, when God said that they should not eat of the fruit of that tree, and He said that in the day they ate thereof, they would die.  Then Eve ate and Adam ate.  Did they die physically at that time?  Did they fall over and die?  No – and this is one of the proofs for spiritual judgment.  They did not die physically.  Adam lived to the age of 930.  He did not die in that very day in his physical body.  Did God not mean it?  Or, did God say something that was not true?  No – that is not possible.  God always speaks the truth, and He would not have said it if He did not mean it.  In the day that man ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he died in his soul existence.  He died in that spiritual part of him, the invisible part of him.  He continued to live in his physical body (for a time), but he died in his soul.  This is why man is “cut off” from spiritual things.  It is why there are atheists, agnostics and secularists, and it is why men look for natural explanations for the creation and the world around them.  It is because they have no spiritual life and, therefore, they cannot ascertain or understand the idea of a spiritual God. 

Of course, others do, and we will get into that, but a growing number of people cannot understand spiritual things and it is all a result of the fact that God struck them dead in their souls.  He killed them in their spirits, and He cut off man from God.  That connection that the creature man had in the beginning with God the Creator was “cut off” by God, and it is only through salvation that the soul can be restored: “He restoreth my soul.”  In salvation, God resurrected the dead souls of only His elect people.  He restored us to life and we live, once again, in the spirit, and in that life God gives us, we are able to perceive God, who is Spirit, and the reality of the spiritual kingdom of heaven, and we are able to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and the things He has done, because we are told this from the Bible, which is a spiritual book.  God’s people have their eyes opened up to the spiritual truths therein, and our ears are in tune to the things that the spiritual book, the Bible, declares, and so forth.  We have “life” in the spiritual realm. 

To use the language of the secular world as they talk about evolution and advancements and progression of species into higher forms of lives, God’s people that have been granted life in our souls have a “higher form” of life.  And that life is the life that will continue on after this physical creation has passed.  So the elect of God have life in our souls as well as life in our physical bodies, whereas the natural people of the world are dead in their souls and dead in spirit, and they only have life in one part of their existence.  They are very limited people.  They cannot perceive God or spiritual reality, due to their limitations.  And these limitations were placed upon them by God Himself.