[0:00] We'll begin again this evening to take up where we left off more than a year and a half ago now, as we continued our progress through the different stages of the book of Genesis.
[0:11] Some of you may remember that early on, a couple of years back, we did chapters 1 to 11, and then we did chapters 12 to 23, and so we'll begin now at chapter 24, and we'll continue, Lord willing, through the next set of chapters, the next stage of the book of Genesis, as we seek to work through it.
[0:30] And we left it at the end of chapter 23 with the death of Sarah and Abraham's burying of Sarah, and now we have, with Isaac fully grown, and he's about 40 years old at this stage, Abraham is now concerned for Isaac's future, for his well-being, and for the continuance of the covenant line.
[0:53] We read, Abraham was old and well as took in an age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. So we see that although he's blessed of the Lord in all things, as we see there at verse 1, and given an exceptionally long life in which to enjoy him.
[1:10] Remember that Abraham lived to be 175 years old altogether. We read that in chapter 25 at verse 7, if you want to look it up. And because we know from chapter 21 at verse 5 that Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born, and we read likewise in chapter 25 at verse 20 that Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah, it means that Abraham at this stage is about 140, or if it took a year to get there and back to Haran, or whatever, through the desert with the camels, then it wouldn't have taken as long as that one thing.
[1:46] But let's just say he's about 139 of this stage. So he is pretty old. He's got, yeah, in the fullness of time, 30 years plus still to go, but he doesn't know that.
[1:59] He is of an exceptionally great age. He has been exceptionally blessed by the Lord. But all human lives, no matter how blessed, all human lives are finite.
[2:12] And no matter how richly blessed we may be in this life, nobody can take any of it with them, save one thing, and that is the blessing of God itself.
[2:24] If we be in the Lord, that will indeed go with us beyond this life. And when all this world has long since passed away, those redeemed by Christ, and let's make no mistake about it, Abraham is redeemed by Christ, even though Christ has not yet appeared upon earth.
[2:44] He is redeemed by the promise of what Christ will do and the price that the Lord will pay upon the cross with his precious blood in the fullness of time.
[2:55] The Old Testament saints are not saved by any other means than by the blood of Christ, the Messiah coming in the fullness of time. So all those redeemed by Christ will still be enjoying his love and blessing in heaven long after this world and the old heavens and the old earth have passed away.
[3:13] Not much Abraham knew he would carry with him beyond the grave into heaven itself. But the concern of any loving parent will surely be to provide for and secure the well-being of the next generation.
[3:30] The more so as they recognize the approach of their own inevitable end. And even though Abraham has a long time still to go, with hindsight we can tell that, it is nonetheless true, as we read here, Abraham was old and well-stricken in age.
[3:47] 139, 140, by the time this incident is recorded here. So he is concerned now for the next generation. Now for the vast majority of parents in this world, then, as now, such concerns for the well-being of their children never rise above the purely material.
[4:10] And that is the tragedy of it. The vast majority of parental concern for their children never rises above the purely material. They want to make sure their family is well provided for.
[4:23] And for most people, in Abraham's day and ours, because human nature hasn't changed one iota, that just means material wealth. They want to leave them money or property.
[4:36] There's nothing wrong with any of that, as far as it goes. It's just that it will never go far enough. Money will soon be spent.
[4:48] And property can end up dividing families and costing more money than it actually brings in. But even if it were possible to leave your children so much money, that they could never spend in a whole lifetime, which is unlikely to be the case for any of us here or for anyone we know, that is as far as it can ever go.
[5:12] It can only go as far as a lifetime. You might think, well, that's fine. What about beyond that? We all know as we get older that this life passes away very quickly.
[5:26] What about beyond that? Abraham knows from experience that the most important thing in the world he can leave his son is the knowledge of the Lord.
[5:39] If Isaac is in a living relationship with the God of Abraham, then that is the greatest legacy his earthly father can ever give him.
[5:50] And it would seem, from verse 63, we didn't read it today, but if you turn a couple of pages, you can see there, at verse 63, Isaac went out to meditate in the field at eventide, lifted up his eyes and saw, behold, the camels were coming.
[6:05] It would seem that Isaac was a man of prayer and meditation. He goes out to the field to meditate, presumably on a regular basis. And to whom would he pray?
[6:16] Whom would he contemplate in his meditation? Other than the God who sent his angel to save him, Isaac, from the sacrificial knife. As we read in chapter 22 there, where Abraham was about to sacrifice the boy, Isaac.
[6:31] This is the God that Isaac now loves and serves and reverently fears. A few chapters further on, where Isaac's son Jacob is having dealings with Laban and they're making this oath covenant together.
[6:46] We read, Jacob swear by the fear of his father Isaac. It doesn't mean he swore by the fact he was terrified of his dad. It means that he swore by that which Isaac feared, in the sense of worship and held in reverence.
[7:02] In other words, the Lord God Jehovah, the living God. God. This faith, this is what Isaac clearly has. He reverently fears.
[7:14] And the Lord Jehovah has become not only the God of Abraham, but the God of Abraham and Isaac. Remember, when the Lord appears to Jacob in his dream, at Bethlehem, we read in chapter 28, at verse 13.
[7:27] Behold, the Lord stood above this ladder reaching up to heaven and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, my father, and the God of Isaac. This is Isaac's God as surely as it is Abraham's God.
[7:41] This faith Abraham knows to be in the heart of his son. But he also knows that if that faith is to be secured against erosion and dilution, then Isaac must have a companion in life who will share at least his knowledge of, and hopefully in due time, his love of, the living God Jehovah.
[8:07] Now that was not going to happen with any of the Canaanite women round about who knew nothing but the pagan gods of their own nation and culture, which were themselves under God's curse.
[8:20] Now it is clear from later chapters that Abraham's own relatives in Haran were not exactly pure in their devotion to the Lord. If we think again about Laban, whom we read about in this passage, and I'd say in chapter 31, at verse 19, Laban went to shear his sheep, and Rachel, that's his daughter, had stolen the images, the graven images of other gods that were her father's.
[8:46] And then when Jacob and Rachel and Leah and the children all left Laban, he comes after them, he says, OK, you had to leave, you had to leave, fair enough. But he says in verse 30, Yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods?
[9:00] Now Jacob might have turned around and said, Well, what are you doing with false gods in your house anyway? But the fact was that Rachel, Jacob's second wife, had taken these gods, these graven images, but the fact that Laban had these false gods and graven images in his own house means that his worship of Jehovah was not exactly pure, not exactly all that devout.
[9:24] Nevertheless, since he was the god of their ancestral line, the god of Noah, the god of Shem, the god of Nahor, by whom likewise, when Jacob is swearing to Laban by the fear of his father Isaac, we read in chapter 31, verse 53, that the god of Nahor, the god of their father, judged betwixt us.
[9:47] Nahor was Abraham's brother. We see that in chapter 11 of Genesis. Nahor was Abraham's brother, and Nahor likewise was the grandfather of Laban. So there was this knowledge that the god Jehovah was their ancestral god, the god of their fathers, the god of Nahor, the god of Abraham, the god of Shem.
[10:08] Abraham and Nahor were nine generations on from Shem after the flood, but it's there in their DNA, the knowledge, the love of the true god, albeit somewhat diluted.
[10:21] They at least knew him. They recognized him as at least nominally their god. And this is why we've got Laban comes out to meet Abraham's servant and says, Come in thou blessed of the Lord.
[10:35] Wherefore standest thou without? Likewise, verses 50 and 51, that we haven't read yet, but it says, Laban and Bethuel answered and said, This thing proceedeth from the Lord.
[10:46] We cannot speak unto thee, bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before thee. Take her and go, and let her be thy master's son's wife, as the Lord hath spoken. They acknowledge the Lord.
[10:58] They are ready to accept the knowledge of the Lord, and the decision of the Lord in their lives. That would not be the case for the Canaanite nations round about Abraham.
[11:12] The nearest equivalent in our modern day might be that, say, the born-again son of a missionary in a Hindu or Muslim country, reaching into a neighboring country to take a wife from people who are outwardly and culturally Christian, but perhaps not exactly red-hot born-again believers.
[11:32] It was, at the very least, a faith that Isaac and his future wife could share, without it being strange to either of them.
[11:44] Without such a mutual faith, Isaac's body or flesh might be comforted after his mother's death, but his soul would be eaten away, little by little, and wither and perish from the inside out.
[11:59] The Lord must be the first and most important relationship in our lives. He must be number one in the life of each and every believer.
[12:12] Some people, perhaps many people, are called to singleness of life, which is an honorable and worthy calling. After all, our Lord was single, and so did a great many of his followers.
[12:24] But for those who are married, your marriage partner will be the second most important person or relationship in your life. If the first does not rule and define the second, then the second will end up ruling and defining the first.
[12:45] Then you have lost everything. Because if the Lord takes second place to anyone, then by definition, he is no longer your supreme being.
[12:59] He is no longer your God. Because God is the name we give to the highest being of all, the highest priority in our lives.
[13:11] If anybody else takes priority over God, then technically that is our God. Whether it is our life or career, our job, our home, our money, or our spouse.
[13:25] Anybody takes priority over the Lord, they have become our God. And then, the second relationship defines the first. It calls the shots. It rules the home, the art, the life.
[13:37] You have lost everything. So this was no mere parental maneuvering of some kind of romantic blind date. This was about Isaac's life, body, and soul, and about the future of the entire covenant line.
[13:56] We see in verses 2 to 4 then that there is this solemn undertaking that is sealed with an oath in the name of the Lord. I will make thee swear, verse 3, by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth.
[14:09] Now, nowadays, if such an oath, such a solemn oath, were to be laid upon us by a lawful authority, we were required to swear in the name of the Lord, we would place our hand upon the Holy Bible, you know, the written word of divine truth.
[14:25] But in those days, with no written Bible, with no tangible artifact to symbolize the holiness of a God who absolutely forbade the use of any images to depict or symbolize himself, we have this curious practice that we read about in verse 2.
[14:43] Abram said to his eldest servant of his house that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh. Now, it occurs again at chapter 47, verse 29, the time drew nigh that Israel, that was Jacob, must die.
[14:57] And he called his son Joseph and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me. Bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt.
[15:10] And so we have, and he said, swear unto me, and he swore unto them. It appears to be used only within the covenant line, and humanly speaking, and without wishing to be indelicate, the seed of the covenant line issues forth from the loins of the patriarch.
[15:30] And when this practice for swearing an oath is used, it appears to be in connection with the securing of the posterity and identity of the next generations.
[15:43] If we go back to Genesis 46 at verse 26, we read, All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins.
[15:54] Besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore and six. It is, again, without wanting to be indelicate, it is difficult to conclude that this can refer to anything other than a placing of the hand as near as possible to the loins themselves or perhaps to the physical evidence of the circumcision, which was the symbol of that covenant cut into the flesh.
[16:21] God's promise to Abraham was about securing him a posterity, future generations, descendants who would be as numerous as the stars of the sky for multitude.
[16:33] But that wasn't going to happen through Abraham alone. Nor would such a posterity be worth conserving if at least some amongst them would not continue in the covenant relationship with the Lord God of Abraham.
[16:47] This was about Isaac too and his descendants. If there's going to be descendants, then Isaac must have a wife and the Lord must provide her. Because that's the other thing we should notice here.
[17:00] Verse 4 seems to be, you know, thou shalt go into my country and to my kindred and take a wife and to my son Isaac. It seems to be, well, fair enough, okay, appears to offer quite a wide range of possibilities.
[17:13] But verse 5, the servant said under peradventure, the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land, has begun to speak of only a single individual and appears to rule out what to you and me might seem the obvious answer.
[17:29] You know, well, if the first one you ask won't go with you, then keep going down the list of possibilities in Abraham's extended family. There's got to be someone amongst all the females over there, you know, who'd be willing to come with you.
[17:43] You've got to find someone eventually. Surely. But such a reasoning is completely absent for both the servant and for Abraham. On no account is Isaac to go back to Haran or to Ur of the Chaldees and it sounds very much like they are only getting one shot at this.
[18:04] Although they don't yet know who the woman will be, they both seem to be thinking in terms of only one individual, one person who will be the right person, one woman who will fill all the criteria and whose heart the Lord will touch and will cause to be made willing to venture quite literally into the unknown, as of course Abraham had done so long before.
[18:30] and to commit herself to a lifelong relationship with someone that she has never set eyes on. now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
[18:52] And we see in Peter, 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 7 and 8, the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, the Lord be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen, ye love, in whom though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
[19:20] In John 20, verse 29, Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.
[19:33] What Rebecca is being asked to do in the frowns of time here is in a sense no different from what every believer is called upon to do, to entrust their life, their future, their heart into the hand of someone whom they have never set eyes on.
[19:52] And yet whom they are called upon to love and to serve and to follow as it were to the ends of the earth. In the Lord's providence and in all likelihood there is at that time only one such woman in the entire world.
[20:09] Chosen, prepared, with her heart touched by the Lord for exactly this encounter and exactly this point in time. One is all that was needed and the Lord led Abram's servant straight to her.
[20:26] That's what we read there at verse 14. Let it come to pass that damsel to whom I shall say let down that picture I pray thee that I may drink. She shall say drink and I will give thy camels drink also.
[20:38] Let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac. Thereby shall I know that thou shalt kindness unto my master.
[20:48] God is endless up to the earth. And although there is only one such woman in all the world at that point when each individual woman or man or boy or girl is called to follow the Lord it is precisely his set of circumstances that has brought them exactly to that moment and to that encounter which prepares them to go where he calls and to follow where hewis and to commit their lives to one whom yes physically they have never said as of.
[21:22] But faith is the substance of things for and the evidence of things not seen. What the Lord required of Rebecca was in one sense not all that unusual.
[21:34] It was not something superhuman nor beyond her power to fulfil. You could even say it was normal in that culture in certain time. In that age and culture girls were married off to comparative strangers at the whim of their families all the time.
[21:50] But this was different because the Lord was in this. Whatever he may call you to or require of you whether you are a man or a woman or a boy or a girl he will never ask anything of you which is beyond your power to fulfil or your ability to do.
[22:11] you will be able to do it if you are prepared to answer his calling but it will need faith and it will need courage and the Lord must be in it.
[22:25] But when he is you will know. So it wasn't just any woman that Abraham and his servant had in mind. It was someone in particular. The right someone.
[22:36] The God ordained someone. The one prepared by him. And they didn't know who she was. Nor do we have any idea of what Abraham would have done if she wouldn't come with them.
[22:47] It was enough that Abraham believed God and acted on that belief. And in the event is the story of the following. We shall see. So did Rebecca.
[23:00] In verse 10 we see here that the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master and departed. All the goods of his master were in his hand and he arose and went to Mesopotamia and to the city of Naaman.
[23:12] We see that whatever we require to do the master's work will never be withheld from us. Everything is under our hand. Remember what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3 might be 1 Corinthians chapter 3.
[23:26] I can't remember exactly but all things whether the world or Paul or Apollos or whatever all are yours and he are Christ's and Christ is God's. All things are under our hand.
[23:38] The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. If God requires something of you or sends you on some task or mission be assured he will give you everything you require, everything you need to complete the task.
[23:53] Pharaoh may command his slaves to make bricks without straw but the Lord is a gentle and gracious king who provides everything his people need to do his bidding.
[24:06] Here in this life we tend to obsess about the journey day to day living, luxuries, necessities, passing fancies and temporary successes or losses, how we're going to get from this stage to the next stage and so on.
[24:22] We obsess about the journey in the normal way of things. It would be highly unusual if this journey of the servant with all his lesser servants and their ten camels and laden with all their goods and chattels.
[24:34] This journey of between six and seven hundred miles, much of it through desert, didn't have its fair share of dangers and problems and adventures and challenges as well as blessings.
[24:47] It would have been quite an adventure, this journey, it would have been quite an undertaking but not one word are we told about it for it is all, all about the destination, the mission, the objective.
[25:05] We're not told a word about the nature of the journey from the minute he packs up all his camels and sets off and he arose and went to Mesopotamia under the city of Nahar.
[25:16] He set off and suddenly he's there and it's all about the destination, all about the mission, all about the objective. So it was for him and so it should be for us.
[25:27] We lay far too much store on this earthly life, this brief journey, albeit one set about with perils and dangers and discouragements as well as blessings and good times.
[25:40] Our real focus should be upon our destination, our goal, and who we expect to meet with at the end of it. So he gets to the well outside of the city and he begins to pray.
[25:56] Now it would be dishonest of me to pretend that the immediacy and fullness with which this prayer in verses 12 to 14 is answered is anything other than a miracle.
[26:08] It is meant to be a miracle. It is recounted here as being positively miraculous and as proof of the Lord's blessing on this mission. Most prayers are longer in the answering and sometimes, perhaps frequently, the answer is no.
[26:27] We all know this, both from Scripture and from experience. But we also know from experience that every now and then, God's answers to our prayers are both spectacular and immediate as we find them to be here in Genesis 24.
[26:47] Now Rebecca herself demonstrates quite a number of qualities here. First of all, there is conscientious dutifulness. she is at the well, not to meet Abraham's men, she doesn't even know that they're there, but to draw water for her own household and family, no doubt, along with other girls and women too, perhaps from the house or just from the village or the town, but that is why she's there.
[27:11] She's doing her duty, she's doing her job, we could say. Abraham's servant arrives and she is busy with her own work doing her job faithfully. So there's this conscientious devotion to duty.
[27:24] Secondly, there is courage. What courage does she need? Okay, a strange man asking a woman or a young girl for a drink of water would not be as uncommon in that society as it would be in ours.
[27:37] After all, our Lord asked a Samaritan woman for a drink, remember, at the well in Shechem. But it would still have taken some courage to respond positively to a strange man backed up by other strange men and their loaded camels.
[27:52] But if she did have any fear, then kindness and compassion overcame the fear. She can see that they're tired, they're weary with their journey, they're hot, the end of their tether and strength.
[28:04] And kindness and compassion overcame any fear she might have and she responds very graciously. So there's courage. Thirdly, there is a willingness to toil hard in the service of others.
[28:17] I think it would be a reference to this fact in the past and a different sermon and occasion. But filling a full-size water jar, such as the women would carry on their shoulders or on their heads, would be enough of a job when you have to do it just once.
[28:32] You know, if you have to fill one of these five-litre plastic cans, eat something to get your milk in, and you just fill it at the tap, and it's pretty heavy when you're lifting up afterwards, or it can be. And if you're going to fill one of these five-litre, five-gallon ones or whatever, then that's huge and hefty to lug and carry.
[28:49] We don't know what size the water jars were, but once you've got to fill it and then carry it and then empty it out or whatever, some writers have suggested that the well at Haran was a deep stone pit with steps going down to a river that flowed below ground level, and that those drawing the water would have to carry their pitches of water up and down the steps with each filling.
[29:11] There might be a hint of that at verse 16, and it says she went down to the well and filled her pitcher and came up. Now, that might just be referring to the fact the well is in a hollow in the land, but it could mean they're going down the steps, filling the water and coming back up.
[29:28] But let's not get hung up on that. Whether it was that or whether it was the lowering of a bucket into a narrower pit and hoisting it up each time, each single drawing of the water would be a task of some effort.
[29:41] To fill the drinking trough for a camel, thirsty at the end of a long hot journey, and knowing that camels store an entire water supply in their hump, so they'd be drinking up an awful lot of water to replace that.
[29:58] This would mean an awful lot of trips to the well, emptying out your jar of water, back down again, fill it up, bring it up again, empty it out in the troughs. But there isn't just one camel.
[30:10] There are ten camels. Ten camels plus the additional servants who also need water. This is a kindness which would have cost dearly.
[30:22] It would have exhausted this young girl. Back and forward, fill the jar, empty it out, back again, lump the heavy jar, splash it out in the trough, back again, and again, and again.
[30:35] But she did it without complaining. We don't need one murmur of complaint without asking for anything and without stopping halfway through just because she may have felt tired.
[30:47] Courageous, faithful in her duty, generous with her time and effort to strangers. Because remember, all this time, those at home will be thinking, I wonder why Rebecca's taken so long well, why isn't she here yet?
[30:59] The other girls are back with their jars of water. What's keeping her? So all this time, she's giving of her time, she's giving her energy, she's giving of her strength and her ability with these strangers.
[31:11] She's got all these qualities, and she's prepared to exhaust herself in the service of others. This is the kind of girl she is.
[31:21] Kind, compassionate, hardworking, willing to finish what she started. This is some girl. It's not for nothing that the servant is so impressed with her. And she's beautiful too, as verse 16 tells us there.
[31:34] And then it says, the damsel is very fair to look upon. A virgin, neither had any man known her. She's virtuous, she's beautiful, she's got all these qualities. This was God's choice.
[31:45] This was God's doing. And he had been way ahead of Abraham's servant because Rebecca must have started her journey from her home down to the well before Abraham's servant even began to pray.
[32:01] Isaiah 65 tells us at verse 24, shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer. And whilst they are yet speaking, I will hear.
[32:12] Now where such blessing is bestowed upon the faith, there will be three things. Firstly, there will be a confidence to ask for more.
[32:24] This is what the servant does. This poor girl has knocked her pan out, emptied all his water in the trough, he's in ten camels with all the water plus the men. And then he says, look who's daughter on, you know, clearly she's somebody special.
[32:37] Is there room at their father's house for us to lodge in? He asks for more. Not out of greed, but out of legitimate need. And because the Lord's goodness hitherto makes for confidence, that he will add yet more blessing.
[32:51] When the Lord gives us good gifts, it shouldn't make us say, oh, that's it now, I don't dare ask for any more, or I'll offend the Lord. God is not offended. Just because you give your children breakfast doesn't mean that they should be afraid to say, when is it tea?
[33:06] Because everybody needs their food different times of the day just because they've got their water now. They needed their water then, but now they have a legitimate need for lodging, for shelter, for the night.
[33:20] It's not greed. It's a legitimate requirement. And God has blessed them so far, so now he has the confidence to ask for more. And where there is need, God provides.
[33:34] Secondly, where it is the faithful to whom these blessings are given, there will be thanksgiving and lots of it. And this is what we find the servant here. He is spilling out his thanks to the Lord God of Abraham.
[33:48] He isn't caring who hears it. He's not going to be all shy and discreet about it and not saying a word. He is thanking the Lord there and then, in public, for what he has done so far so that when Rebecca goes back to her family, she's able to say what the man said and what he said about the God of Abraham and what he said about their being distant relatives and so on.
[34:08] She's able to tell all this. And so Laban is all prepped and all prepared when he comes out and says, oh, bless him to you, oh, the Lord. He's now using the name of Abraham's God as well.
[34:18] There is abundant thanksgiving. Lots of it because the next objective has been achieved. Another stage along the way has been reached. God keeps on giving.
[34:29] And it behoves us to keep on thanking him. So there will be, firstly, where God's blessing has been, there will be confidence to ask for more. There will be abundant thanksgiving on the part of those who receive it.
[34:44] And thirdly, there will be the provision of all that we need above and beyond all that we could ask or thank. Everything in the Old Testament ultimately points us to the new.
[34:57] Remember what Jesus says to the disciples in John 14, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there you may be also.
[35:11] And yes, he is ultimately talking about heaven, but it is also true that the Lord goes before us to prepare for us on every stage of our journey on earth.
[35:22] and often he uses ordinary people to do it. Sometimes he even uses charlatans and characters like Laban here to provide for his own people.
[35:34] The words of welcome that we read here at verse 31 are in the mouth of Laban. But the invitation is ultimately from the Lord. Come in, thou blessed of the Lord.
[35:47] wherefore standest thou without? For I have prepared the house. And room for the camels? Yes. If there's room for the camels upon earth, how much more is there room for sinners like you and me in the Lord's house in heaven?
[36:04] I go to prepare a place for you, says the Lord. And he said, Come in, thou blessed of the Lord. Wherefore standest thou without?
[36:16] For I have prepared the house. Think of the parable that Jesus told about the wedding supper. Where the guests that wouldn't come and the master said, Why don't you go into the highways and byways and compel them to come in?
[36:31] And the servant said, Yes, it's done exactly as you said. And yet there is room. I have prepared the house. And yet there is room.
[36:42] This is the situation of the Lord to sinners where he, having prepared his house, he having prepared his blessings, says to sinners, Why are you standing outside?
[36:56] The Lord desires to bless. I have prepared the house. I have prepared the house and there is room and yet there is room. Whether for beasts of burden on earth, whether for sinners in heaven, the Lord himself invites.
[37:12] The Lord himself says, All is in readiness. Come in, thou blessed of the Lord. Well, I'm not very blessed of the Lord. I can see all the problems that are in my house.
[37:23] I can see all the problems in my life. I don't feel very blessed of the Lord. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.
[37:34] Who do you think has brought you this stage thus far along the journey of life? Who do you think it is that has brought you to this hour? Who do you think it is that has provided for you every step of the way?
[37:45] You and I, we are blessed of the Lord even if we do not acknowledge it. Come in, thou blessed of the Lord. Wherefore standest thou without, for I have prepared the house.
[37:59] And yet, there is room to bless you.