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00:00:01 [Applause] [Music] a bride for isaac but actually if you look into this passage it is about one of the longest narratives in the entire bible it's very change you know why because you repeat what the lord has done to choosing rebecca twice that and that's the reason why he he repeats it now um that's how we would have prayed first lord we ask that you speak to us today through this seamless seemingly innocent passage about matchmaking but yet it has deeper implications for how we live our lives we asked our lord
00:00:58 that that would through the spirit reveal the truth we asked would you say amen not working again as usual see no nothing why does it always happen to me it's only me right you know this only me one you know and i'm the most tech-savvy of all you guys right it's the lord humbling me i have to humble the guy anyway so is this passage about marriage are we going to get for young people among our mates matchmaking tips or parents like idiom you know is it uh you know do we learn certain principles here so that our
00:01:50 children will get properly married i think a lot of sermons have pre-preached on genesis 24. looking at that particular and yes the bible has input in this area but if we were to think that this passage is all about the marriage and the matchmaking which is so made so much simpler nowadays we just have to swipe left swipe right right we don't have to go through all that trouble the book go back to tongasan and get a woman right we would have missed the point it is not about that the whole passage is about my slight
00:02:24 clicker still doesn't work so let's give up can i have win jin just say next slide i knew you go okay i will not use this anymore right so it is about how we live our lives okay and basically the three points that come from here one we should allow how do we live our lives we should align our lives with his calling number two we should feel for his hand in our lives and number three we need to trust it his purposes in our lives or our world all right let's have the next slide aligning our lives with his calling next
00:02:59 slide now there are four scenes to this particular narrative if you look so the one it happens in canaan hometown two happens in mesopotamia in the town of uh haran and then back to the ranch again at canaan where isaac rebecca and the servant and we want to see all these principal players in this narrative how they work out the story next slide please now we start off with we need to put this passage in the context of the whole narrative of genesis there's a purpose all right so do you know that this passage is what
00:03:39 almost last chapter on the life of abraham so we cannot preach this chapter unless we look back on the life or abram it is about the life of abraham it isn't about just choosing a husband or a wife if you look back you could genesis chapter 12 where god gives promises of descendants and the blessing of the whole world of nations and then all he has in chapter 13 is the land his promise chapters 15 and 17 the land and nation is promised again and that's all he has and he has to wait he's left his hometown the mesopotamia for at the
00:04:19 age of 75. god promised him a son he has to wait 25 years for a son huge time left at 75 years of age and only got a son when he was 100 years of age and here we have isaac born after the 21st chapter right and then it looks as if god acts okay small movements over a long period of time and the next thing that happens in this whole 25 chapters of abraham's life is that he's uh his wife gets a burial plot very strange life of faith all he's gotten out of his life of faith is a whole bunch of promises
00:04:58 13 genesis 15 and 17 and after he has offered his son god reinforces promise that he will give him land and a blessing and then he gets a burial plot for his wife and if you look very carefully here the burial plot is at hebron it is one of the three places where he actually set out initially to put altars very strange if you look at chapter 23 huge amount of verses 16 verses and how he got the burial plot two verses by the way my wife died 127 years died and the whole chapter is about him getting the land
00:05:38 and say what kind of author is this it's like president trump you know 160 000 people done he's done talk about i thought by economy it's so insensitive but you must understand why moses writes it in such way moses is interested in the life of faith taking god's promises and having these promises realized in the life of faith that's why 16 verses on the land now he promised him the land right out of so many years 50 years here you know what plan he got you need one burial plot and whole idea of getting his burial plot if
00:06:10 you look at chapter 2 3 is actually offered to him for free by the hittite but he won't take it for free because for free means not yours you know he offers to buy in fact he pays over price if you look in chapter 23 double the time 18 verse 18 and verse 20 abraham got this parcel of land as his property so this is the down payment of the promise that he went to the promised land with the promise of the whole land at the end of his life what has he got a son with a promise of perhaps marriage in
00:06:44 continuing his progeny and a piece of land to bury his wife that's all he got and then this is a place uh at back pala which is at hebron uh inside these walls is basically where the burial site of sarah and then later on abram was there now let's start off our passage and the passage says that abraham was old well advanced in years why tell you that he's old the fact is all and well advanced he says you know why in the old testament long life is a blessing from god that's why i purposely tell you it's old
00:07:17 nowadays you tell you oh they look every pity with us oh my god all means are blessing okay advance in life other people have not made it you know and the lord has blessed abraham all things and abraham said to his wife to his uh servant the oldest in this household many commentators postulate this eliezer the one he you know probably wanted him to be the heir because he he didn't have the faith to believe that it would be an isaac would be in charge of all he had put your hand under my thigh i don't
00:07:47 want to talk about putting my hand under my thigh too controversial that one that i miss make you swear by the lord the god of heaven and god of earth that you will not take from a wife from my son from the daughter's canaanite among whom i dwell i will go to my country to my kindred and take a wife for my son isaac here's the last bit of his life he's lived his life by faith believing in the promise and all he got returned from god is what one miserable cave and a land around it and he still trusts god and
00:08:20 he's going to put it all on the line because if isaac doesn't get the right wife the whole promise falls apart and is willing to come up and even at the right old age 170 something years old he's going to put it all on the line and here you have why go back to tongsan and get woman which is ridiculous you know why because the distance is 400 miles 450 miles and and you're asking a lady who comes from a city of haran to come and go to cowboy town remote wilderness far far away danger of a 450 mile is not a highway
00:09:00 you know you go with a whole bunch of the bandits around the side there's a sacrifice for the lady to come and you rely on your servant aliaser must not know spring chicken anymore no old man it's difficult why did he do this it's easier for you to fall in love with the girl next door right 10 years don't tell me no girls in canaanite local girls plenty why must go overseas all right you know pragmatism is the antithesis of all the spirit land proverbs says there's a way that seems right to man
00:09:32 but this end is the way of death sometimes the easy way out the girl next door may not be the right way here you can see abraham directly moving against the trend of his times he's a man on a mission he's fulfilling his calling and the last bit of his calling is to ensure that the next generation has this vision and it's very resolute about it and the servants say that perhaps this woman may not be willing to come and follow me my side then take your son back to the land from which he came obviously no woman
00:10:01 won't follow you love offer go to to you know from kuala lumpur you go to what uh greek is it uh it's impossible it's very difficult and then abram says you see to it that you do not take my son back there why don't you want to take your son back there he won't come back anymore there's a fear isn't it the lord of heaven who took me lord god god of heaven who took me from my father's house and from the land of my kindred who spoke to me and swore to me to your offspring i will give this land he will send his angel
00:10:30 before you you will take a wife from my son from there but if a woman is not willing to follow you then you will be free from this earth of mine and you must not take my son back there so twice he said cannot take back there because the promise depends on isaac so the servant put his hand under the thigh of abraham and his master and swore to him concerning his matter now if you look at this passage there are three things that pop up very clearly that gives the reason but why he insists that you go back
00:10:59 to haran to get the wife one is god's promises it's you see when we make decisions in life however easy or how difficult it is it's always based on the kind of principles of which we found our lives on otherwise if we just make it the film will at the moment we are going to wind up in trouble so therefore his decision-making is always bound by three things god's promises god's deeds and god's purposes and first of all it's based on god's promises who swore to me she spoke to me and swore to me to your
00:11:33 offspring i will give you this land so the whole thing is about the promise of god he's basing his decision his actions his dreams all based on this one promise and number two on god's deeds the lord god of heaven who took me from my father's house and from the land of my kindred god has taken him safely not without adventure no not without some detours here and there but god in the end has brought him all the way from uh of the chaldeans right across thousands of miles to the promised land it is based on
00:12:07 god's deeds god can be trusted and the last one is that god purposes he will send his angel before you and you will take a wife for my son there so therefore god has his purpose of doing this and this is god's side on our side we are to trust his promises we are to experience his deeds recognize them and we are to obey his purposes see god's promises god is to be obeyed now if you move on the woman if the woman is not willing to follow you then you will be free from this oath you must only take my son back you must not
00:12:45 take my son back there and then the servant basically swore and here he write the last act of his life he is going to put it all on the line see this kind of guy is like a gambler right everything you put on the line but now he's gambling on god that whatever it is it is done god's ways you see the life of faith always puts everything on the line one he is going to trust god either you got a young lady whom god has chosen from my hometown or nothing at all the whole promise falls flat and this is a big thing
00:13:20 all right now how do we live our lives we either live our lives based on god's calling we started in genesis 12 or we live our lives based on our ambition what's the difference in calling an ambition calling always has to originate from someone outside someone has to call you how do you live your life how do you make decisions how do you decide how which wives to marry it is not a private decision it is a calling we live either according our calling or according to our ambition what is our ambition
00:13:56 it's what we decide to do with our lives and the trouble we look into society they mix the two up here we have stephen prestfield a famous american writer he writes ambition i've come to believe is the most primal and sacred and fundamental to our being to feel ambition to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls not to act upon that ambition is to turn our backs on ourselves and the reason for our existence so it's for him ambition is actually looking into the calling within those we look within
00:14:27 ourselves famous talk show host oprah winfrey says your calling isn't something that somebody can tell you about it's what you feel it's a thing that gives you juice the thing that you're supposed to do and nobody can tell you what it is you know what it is inside we are actually this kind of thinking has permeated our thinking everything is based on what we feel in fact he says passion will bloom when we are doing what we love so whenever we make decisions it's not based on the calling it's actually based
00:14:58 on ambition on how we feel look at timothy paul writes to timothy before he dies in this last epistle for you be sober-minded and your suffering says asking someone to choose the other path to do work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry at least finish your calling and the example is paul i'm ready to be poured out as a drink offering the taiwan toucher has come i fought the good fight i finished the race i've kept the faith henceforth laid up for me the crown of righteousness with the lord the
00:15:30 righteous judge will award to me on that day that is what it's about you know ravi zakkar i wrote a whole book on this isaac and and and and rebecca a very interesting book it's it's not very expensive you can buy it off kindle and he tells of a true story of a young man a young woman in the early 20s who basically totally hit over heels in love and they wanted to marry but the young man suddenly got a disease he never described it in the book what kind of disease it was but ravi was counseling them
00:16:06 and he only had two years to live and even then sex would have been precarious he would have died and they were counseling them as to whether they should go ahead get married after all love is the most important thing in life right it's better to have loved and then lost right then nevertheless before right so he counseled them and after great great struggle they came up to ravi with a decision and it's not like your movies you know in the movies you get married right two years later you can find another one
00:16:46 no they decided not to marry the reason why is that here as a young woman with a prime of her life the kind of investment of emotional of her emotional investment would be and she'll be so transformed by this man in two years of marriages it would have been difficult for her to recover and would she ever find another man like that and the another man who would marry her later will always live in the shadow of that one man and you prefer to have left this young woman alone so that she could find a full life now
00:17:17 to do that they had to think with their mind not with the heart and that's where this young man truly loved the woman you know we could live for ourselves enjoy my remember watching a tv program my wife you know it's you know now that under the mco we cannot go anywhere right ah so you buy a big tv like i did and then you go on youtube wow my god you know and you we have been to canada we have been to alaska we have been everywhere it's so much cheaper isn't it youtube bunny and then you go and see and then we went
00:17:55 to this place where while we went to this place cyberwatch you go to church with the zoom we go to canada via zoom too and we have this bear island where you're a beautiful island when you go there and you just see the bears and the eating what are they eating they're eating salmon all right and there are some people who live in that cabin in bear island or bear reserve and you know they live their whole life there you know every day wake up walk into the forest see the bear catch the fish go back have breakfast and go
00:18:25 lunch go again imagine that doing that for 50 years of your life i think it's good for a few minutes right but it's not something that you could base your life on see that's what emotions are like happiness is like this viktor frankl famous uh jewish psychiatrist he writes happiness cannot be pursued it must ensue it's a byproduct one cannot one must have a reason to be happy is the pursuit of happiness that actually towards happiness if we're chasing after happiness it's going to melt in your hands like
00:19:00 ice cream malaysia used to be number 35 in the world ranking of being happy last year i don't know why it went down to 80. i don't know why but last year went down to 80. you see happiness one moment where number 35 in the world one year within a certain few events we're down to 80. you'll base your life on happiness and you know the happiness after a while psychologists say a good thing happen bad thing happen you always give back to a baseline it's not the way to live your life let's look at the last bit of this passage
00:19:36 and the servant told isaac all the things he had done and isaac this is about the girl all right so isaac brought her into the tent of sarah his mother and he took rebecca and she became his wife and he loved her so isaac was comforted after his mother's death can you see sequence there what's the sequence and how is it young people how is it different from today's sequence today's request i fall in love you know and then you get married here you actually heard all about what has happened and then he brought her into the tent he
00:20:13 took i mean there's there's no marriage ceremony like they go together have sex and then it's counted as marriage all right so you've got a it's a little bit different from today today we have the big dinner and all that right okay so in those days he made a decision he took her she became his wife and then he loved her but why go to all this trouble you know today it's it's so different isn't it everything is is based on our feelings uh in fact uh ravi zacharias gave a very interesting point he says
00:20:45 love is like an onion you taste it with delight but when it's gone you wonder what made you bite love is funny thing just like a lizard it curls up around your heart and then it jumps into your gizzard love is swell is so enticing it's orange gel it's iced strawberry icing it's chocolate mousse it's roasted goose it's ham on rice banana pie loves all good things without a question in other words it's in digestion interesting isn't it i mean it describes love is that many standard thing it makes the world go wrong and yet you get
00:21:20 indigestion from it because if you just only base your life on feelings david and that sheba follow your feelings that oprah winfrey isn't it one day instead of going to war he's at home he sambang and then he looks across from his couch and he saw a woman bathing i don't know what he's doing watching women bathing and the woman was very beautiful and david inquired by woman is this not bad sheba and then they said the wife of uriah and you know what happened he fell in love and that was it and he committed sin
00:21:56 what about amnon and tema his son now epsilon david's son had a beautiful sister whose name was tamar and after a while amnon david's son also you know brother sister loved her and they were so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister you cannot marry your sister right for he was she was a virgin and it seemed impossible for amnon to do anything to her she cannot touch so he's every day lasting away and suddenly he violated he raped her he would not listen to her and became stronger than she because he
00:22:34 was stronger than he she violated her lay with her amnon hated her with a very great hatred so the hatred with which he hated her was greater than love with which she had loved her and amnon said to her get up and go very strange then he lusted after her he wanted her the whole world revolved around her the moment he has sex with her gone opposite feeling he hates her see if you base your life on feelings it'll be a disaster in fact there are two professors who have written this book interesting
00:23:07 book called the molecule of more this is much of our lives in terms of falling love is basically based on one molecule you know what the normal kill is dopamine dopamine is a high which you get when you see a woman which you like and she smiles back you say hello haha marty and the dopamine comes and then your whole life you're like wrapped around her little finger you know something the only trouble with dopamine is that it doesn't last and you must have more dopamine from what not if you say hello again doesn't work
00:23:40 it must be another woman say hello it must be something new otherwise it doesn't last in fact you need so many hollows that solomon has 700 wives and 300 concubine because he's on the dopamine high and every time must have a new person new person new person that's not how you live your life and yet we live in a society where why people get married you ask the young people because before they laugh love is number one this appeal research we love is number one reason why we get married and because we base our lives just on
00:24:12 that the number of people who are getting married will actually drop from 72 from 1960 down to 2008 52 number of people who are never married also have been rising marriage in pew research recently done 2013 is getting obsolete because 39 percent of people no longer believe in marriage why because if marriage is based on just a feeling and half the people who get married divorce anyway so it becomes out of fashion in fact what you have to do is dopamine gets you there but you need to have an attachment it's a different kind of love
00:24:49 it's a kind of love with the two different kinds of hormones it's very vasopressin and oxytocin which release when you actually hold hands and you touch if here's some experiments on prairie voles you know peripherals a little like rabbits or rats and you find that if you actually give them an injection or vasopressin they actually love each other you block the precedent they don't love each other anymore it's an attachment and so what happens is that someone said love is a decision it's a judgment it's a promise if love
00:25:23 is only a feeling there will be no basis for promise to love each other forever a feeling that comes and goes how can i judge that it will stay forever when my action does not involve judgment and decision what eric fromm is saying is that love has always got to be a decision a judgment is a promise because if it's based on a feeling you can't promise the feeling will be there right can you promise the feeling will be there 10 years from now 20 years from now you're going to need a lot of dopamine
00:25:48 right your wife's going to change shape every two years because new ma dopamine comes only when you're new so you can change shape love but being beaten where you like you know they describe dopamine and and vasopressin like two things one is a merry-go-round the other one's a bridge and you go to new york city you will actually see at the bottom of the bridge a merry-go-round so you've got a merry-go-round you go round and round after the berry go around you're gonna get on the bridge dopamine puts you on the merry-go-round
00:26:23 you go round and round it's fantastic going round and round after the very good round it drops you off at the same spot it starts you go nowhere one you know you keep going round and round you stop to the ground around drops you there some of you some of us are like that no more dopamine round and round pump divorce law but the important thing about the dopamine is that it drops you back at the bottom of the bridge and you need to climb the bridge and that bridge is called attachment a more matured kind of love
00:26:53 by oxytocin vasopressin that's the long-term permanent relationship we can approach marriage with the immature idea that i'm on the merry-go-round but you work your way nowhere anywhere trying to relieve the romantic moment then you go back to the same hotel had dinner candlelight with your wife you know it's never same it's never the same dopamine is different from vasopressin if it's the same there's something wrong with you so we develop a permanent strong emotional bond all right and it's always a decision god
00:27:28 determines who walks into your life it's up to you to decide who who you let walk away who you let stay and who you refuse to let go you know so so basically love is always a decision right so why didn't he marry the girl next door i mean if if love is just if marriage is based on love why couldn't jake isaac marry the girl next door because he is a son of a very special man he is a son of a man given the promise for the next generation and not just a nation a nation that would be separate special worshipping
00:28:04 god a light to the world joyce joyce baldwin a commentator on bible speak today series writes the success of this enterprise depended on the separateness of the people of god a necessary condition for developing a counter culture that would reflect their walk with god you see the way abraham lived even right down to choosing a wife for his son is completely different to what other people do and that ingredient is absolutely necessary because god chose his people his family and that is how you should live because that
00:28:42 is the way you live when you become the next generation of the people of god brothers and sisters christ young people if you belong to jesus christ you a separate people you are a special people you cannot just marry somebody anybody or the girl next door based on your dopamine it is always based on the fact that you are called separately to walk a separate path to be a separate people to reflect your walk with god i will in you all families on the earth shall be blessed i will make you isaiah i will make you as a light for
00:29:22 the nations that my salvation will reach to the ends of the earth you cannot be a light to the nation if your whole life is shared by somebody who does not share that light you know at the end of jesus life in that beautiful pie priestly prayer which you prayed for in john 17. he said i glorified you on earth and accomplished the work that you gave me to do that you gave me to do you know jesus did a lot of things but not everything when he he spent time and you know how many people 12. he only healed he think he went to
00:29:59 hospital to clear everybody from subung medical center why where he could have gone there and clear everybody but he didn't he healed only certain people he could have started a revolution he could have stepped up a political party he could have written a book be nice the epistle of jesus christ why didn't he do all those things you see your calling involves not only the things that you do but the things that you didn't do there are a lot of things with jesus christ did not do because he had to choose the things that
00:30:28 work according to his calling and the same thing with all of us the law of people whom you can marry who say cannot marry your man his woman can't read you isn't it but a lot of things that you decide that you do not do because you have a calling to fulfill the mission god has for you now let's go for the second hand second point we need to know how to align our lives we need to feel for his hand in our lives and see how the servant does this servant took out 10 of the masters camels departed taking all sorts of
00:30:59 choice gifts from his master he rose and went to mesopotamia the city of nehar he made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening and a time women go out to draw water so he goes he doesn't go empty tangan how to catch women like that empty tongan you must spend a bit long isn't it so it brings 10 camels 10 camels what they carry something right don't tell me it's all empty one they carry some barang barang to show that you know abraham got some men some means like some of you men you know
00:31:34 waiting uh for to catch your lady you have to make sure you're a condo you got a car you got a credit card any of the three missing tablets so it's part of the culture so it's it's god works within the culture i'm not saying you're about married because you've got credit card card and condo right i'm just saying it's part of the culture and he also uses wisdom isn't it he goes in front where the women go and draw water isn't it he could have gone in front of the boy's school i said god do a miracle yeah that one
00:32:04 would be a miracle but he is actually using wisdom and then he says he prays all right so he says oh lord god or my master abraham please grant me success show steadfast love to my master abraham the word steadfast love is hassett the most important word entire whole old testament it is a love which god has exhibited time and time to his people it is a love not just of emotion but of action it's an action kind of word so basically he says show steadfast love to my master so he's actually acting praying by faith before i'm
00:32:46 standing by the spring of water the daughters of men are coming out to draw water let the woman whom you to whom i say please let down your jar that i may drink and we shall say drink and i water your camels that will be the one whom you have appointed for your servant isaac by this i shall know you have shown steadfast love to my master so he not only prays about it he puts out the very reasonable thing he sits down in front of the spring of water all the women coming and he looks very poor thinking
00:33:16 with the tongue hanging out so you know and then if the woman comes said please give me drink and she will not only give him drink but give drink to what his camel how many camel he got what's up yeah 10 camels you know how much one camel will drink anybody know here 25 gallons you know how one bucket how many gallons three how many camels are there ten how many trips you make 83 83 trips i mean which woman out of our mind will go and give you a drink and then go and drink as if you go to the petrol station fill
00:33:57 your car plus 10 pmw behind you and feel all of them for you what's wrong with this woman very unusual isn't it but he's looking using wisdom for characteristics of an excellent wife because you cannot just any woman become the matriarch of the new nation correct and so therefore you look solomon years later on right he's of an excellent woman she dresses herself with strength make her arms strong why 83 times lift up the the bucket right you got to be real strong not those you chair putri lillian
00:34:28 lie on some mattresses that you feel one one one seed isn't it the biblical example of woman is strong all right so so people like susannah who work out very good all right she perceives her merchandise is profitable her lamp does not go out at night she puts her hand on the distaff her hands hold the spindles she's not idle she's doing something all the time she opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needle and not only she's strong she's generous and kind she's generally that's why the servant is
00:35:04 sitting there and ask that the criteria is that she's generous and she's kind strength and dignity are her clothing she laughs at the time to come she opens her mouth with wisdom and the teacher of kindness is on her tongue this woman exudes kindness charm is deceitful beauty is vain the woman who fears the lord shall be praised young men the charm the beauty is fleeting and and this server knows that but before he even finished don't have the all-night prime meetings and just before before he finishes uh
00:35:40 it's a miracle rebecca who was born to basketball son of milka wife of nehor abraham's brother came out with the water on a jar on her shoulder a young woman was very attractive in appearance a woman a maiden whom no man had known she went down the spring filled up a jar and came up the woman ran the servant ran to meet her and said please give me a little water to drink from your jar she says drink my lord and she quickly laid down a jar upon her and gave him a drink and and here's when rebecca comes
00:36:10 straight away the author references back and he references back that he's born to bethel son of milka and if you actually see here in the line that nehor is the brother of abraham and he married this woman called milka and had a son called bethuel that tool's daughter is rebecca which means abraham's niece's grandniece is actually rebecca nicely in the same family this is not by accident this is arranged by god and after uh jacob you will see the 12 tribes of israel come see god goes backwards in time to secure his promises
00:36:53 he lays the background that's why in genesis chapter 21 22 right after the sacrifice of isaac straight away this passage comes out to tell you that god has before the beginning of time laid the background you need to see the hand of god you need to feel the hand of god and be before you finish you know praying she turns up right pedigree she drew for all his camels all 10 camels and he gazed in silence to see where to learn whether the lord had prospered his journey or not and then when he's finished
00:37:35 drinking feeding the the camels he makes his first move he gives one uh gold ring half a shekel and two bracelets okay this gold rings for her nose i don't know why you put on your nose must be a very heavy one and two bracelets for arm wearing 10 shackles of gold this initial investment you take girl on date must pay first last all right nowadays people go dutcher not a good idea so he shows his generosity by you know putting something out and then he hasn't found out what this woman is about and
00:38:08 then she he talks to her and then he says i am the daughter of bethel son of milka whom she born to nehor the bells are now going my god of all the people in this whole city of of of haran i meet this one the grannies and then she says um we have plenty of straw at father and room to spend the night so she's kind she's open and about the man bowed his head and worshiped god and blessed blessed be the lord god of my master abraham who has not forsaken his steadfast love and faithfulness towards my master for me
00:38:43 the lord has led me in the way to my house of my master's kinsmen so he recognizes this is the hand of god not only that bonus point rebecca very beautiful you know i'm not saying don't look for a beautiful girl this bonus you know but it's a secondary and you notice that when when the servant goes to look for a wife you know you think you think he brings a laundry list from isaac hey remember it must be like that what shape must like vegetables must be able to work out uh must uh you know have with what color
00:39:17 hair and mustard fart in bed all these sort of criteria oh all of you a lot of young people they call this laundry list on you know there's no laundry list isn't it all right because it's not important whatever differences you have of course your differences she's a woman and you're a man no differences that itself got plenty of differences of which you can work out so your bearish is never made of compatibility you know it's anchored in the calling of god and then the next character here is we
00:39:53 know from later on in genesis is a very greedy fella all right so here we have him he's a brother who seems to take charge of everything he and he's taking charge of all this negotiation right and then rebecca had a brother his name was rabban and laban ran out to the man and he saw the ring i saw the ringer and the bracelet in that sister's arm they heard from the words of rebecca thus the man spoke to me he went to the man and behold the standing by the camels of the spring and he said come inside oh blessed with the lord why do
00:40:20 you stand outside for prepare the house and the place for the camels okay now after this the whole passage repeats itself i mean i won't get you to read because the whole thing repeats itself simply because the author wants to impress upon us that this is something miraculous you don't travel 450 miles and go to some non-restricted fountain where there are plenty of fountains around people get water and all the places you find abraham grannies there was no google in those days and no ways in those days
00:40:52 for you to find somebody that is absolutely miraculous and they prayed the moment prayed the woman appears poof it is so wonderful that the author repeats it again then he looks for a response and this is a response you know you better uh now if you're going to show steadfast love and faithfulness to my master tell me if not tell me that i may turn to right or to the left do you agree or not if you don't agree i better find somebody else okay so this is laban and the father better world and they confirm and they say these words
00:41:25 laban and bachel answered the thing has come from the lord we cannot speak to you good or bad behold rebecca before you take her and go and let her be the wife to your master son as the lord has spoken the word we cannot speak to you good or bad it's the same hebrew word is chapter 3 of genesis when god knows that you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you'll be like god knowing god and good and evil knowing good and evil good or bad is only determined by god which means laban and bethel looking at the
00:41:59 circumstances of the repeated narrative understand from the coincidental sequence of events that this is god's hand and if it's god's hands what can we say no we have to agree and this shows their obedience as well and then then laban tries laban tries his old tricks why don't you stay 10 days more maybe he can you know why got 10 camels outside right i can squeeze more money right but the servant very wisely say no we have to go and he's and and he brings the whole thing to um rebecca call the woman and ask her and
00:42:45 they call rebecca and said to her will you go with this man and the words she says i will go and in fact this is exactly similar to abraham 50 years earlier where the promise is given you know she would have spent much time with the servant the servant would have told him about isaac isn't it handsome fellow very strong works out two hours every day godly man the promise all the adventures of abraham the whole idea of the promise that would have told her everything um and for her to agree and leave to go to
00:43:21 unknown land based on the promise and so she steps out by faith she recognizes the hand of god and even the others who sing confirmed the hand of god they blessed rebecca and said to her our sister may you become tell thousands of ten thousands may your offspring possess the gate of those who hate him and this is actually if you look at it it's almost prophetic because it actually turns out to be true so the decision-making in this situation depends on the overall direction of god's call in our lives
00:43:50 we will reach we follow his calling we reject other alternatives we commit our endeavor to god in prayer we establish certain criteria in wisdom commensurate with the call we step out in faith and we look for confirmation in terms of science and response this is the practical lessons we learn in decision making lastly we are to trust in his purposes in our world here you have isaac right what was he doing all this adventure there what was isaac doing you know what he was doing he was praying he was out in the field
00:44:31 meditate to what do you think he'd be meditating on what's he going to look like fat thin beautiful ugly taller than me shorter than me does she likes mcdonald's or not everybody's thinking if you're a young man you're thinking about computer games i know most of you think about computer games but he would be thinking about his future what would she be like and she's actually meditating on what god will do and do you know it's harder it's easier to go with the servant right and then pick and choose
00:45:02 right it's harder to sit and wait for god to choose the right one for you so you'll be thinking i'm so helpless i'm 37 years of age no woman yet what if the servants are unsuccessful what would she be like maybe i have a girlfriend next door he'll be thinking all these sort of things and then he was not bound he his son later on he saw also a canaanite woman did not please isaac's father he went to ishmael took his wife took his wife beside the wife he had mala daughter of ishmael abram's son and
00:45:41 the sister of nabai you see you can't disobey it's still your choice but isaac was obedient he was not bound but he was obedient because he saw the covenant and when we decide who we marry we are ultimately responsible for the decision we make but we it may make it in obedience even when isaac was bound you think all men who's pushing 120 years old can go and grab a 30-something year fella and and tie him down he was bound and obedient he's always been on the big sun and then we come to the almost hallmark moment look at the 63
00:46:23 64. he lifted up his eyes and saw and she lifted her eyes and saw right thing together he saw camel and she saw him i always call this almost hallmark moment pray pray pray look at all camels all right his bit delayed response um and then yeah and basically his prayers were answered you know you know you may be pushing 30 something years of age and oh my goodness where's you know all i look up all i see is camels but behind the camel may be somebody coming all right so god takes a long time okay
00:47:02 all right but he's never late because his timing is perfect god has the one for you and rebecca lifted her eyes and she saw isaac and she quickly dismounted the camel and said hey who the fella and the servant said my master immediately gonna do cover face why shy ma the girl must play hard to get a bit you know if she runs towards him i think that would be quite off-putting so she puts on the veil and saying you know only a self-respecting woman will put on the veil all right so that's the custom in those days so don't
00:47:40 be too forward girls the servant told isaac all the things he had done you see very important thing look i want you look at the sequence of events he told isaac all the things which means he went there he did this god answered the parents said yes everything you know then only based on that information isaac brought her into the tent of sarah his mother took rebecca he you know why is the tent of his mother because she becomes the matriarch of the whole tribe you know she's the boss lady and then he took her she became his wife
00:48:16 and he loved her and sarah was comforted isaac was comforted after his mother's death someone once said no one falls in love by choice it is by chance no one stays in love by chance it is by work no one falls out of love by chance it is by choice and this is very wise he makes a decision okay you may have found the girl by chance but you make a choice and you don't stay in love by chance you know dopamine you must change oxytocin and vasopressin you must attach and you must make the decision it
00:48:51 is by work and when you fall out of love don't come and tell me and i fall out of love everybody has no more dopamine right it's by choice you decide to stay in love you decide to stay with the person and you love that person next slide start again all right now god seems to work through seemingly precarious efforts of man what if abraham would have made the wrong decision said nama you take my son let him go and choose okay swipe left right left right what about the wisdom of the maybe he stood in front of the wrong
00:49:31 fountain asked the wrong woman or he was faithless took the 10 camels in jabot or blaban and battle could have negotiated for higher price or rebecca could say you know what if i go 450 miles to an unknown place i live in where i live 10th you know you're offering me no condone offer me tents you know you think i want to go uh you saw or isaac while he's waiting so why so long why got so well i better marry the girl next door because she's in love we grew up together you see it seems seemingly precarious we look at
00:50:07 our lives and everything could have been could have been could have been very concerned we would do a movie or every step of the way could have gone wrong and yet at the back of it abraham was very confident you know he said that he will send an angel before you and you shall take a wife for my son that abraham was absolutely convinced did you see the angel guys in the passage angel came zoom this one i choose this one did you see that don't have sometimes angels work quietly through a seemingly jumbled sequence of
00:50:43 events and yet the angel is there every step of the way you know life is like this long if you look at the back of tapestry all the threads go everywhere one you don't know what kalam kabul i'm pushing 35 still no children i saw yourself don't know wife and or whatever it's so confusing but at the back if you follow god's purposes he creates a nice tapestry if you look on the long view it all makes sense and if you look in the life of rebecca and isaac they gave birth to jacob and through his tortured life there's 12 tribes of
00:51:24 israel came out we have a challenge beyond before us today abraham's final test died at 175 years this is the last adventure of faith before he died and he lived his life based on the promise hebrews summarizes very well by faith he went to live in the land of promise in a foreign land living in tents he only lived in tents all those who died we see abraham not having received the things of promise we die without having received the things that all he received was what one miserable cave with a bit of land
00:52:06 behind it and the promise that his son would marry this woman from his hometown and you know god leaves abraham with two successful ingredients for his life the two successful ingredients in life is god's promises and god's deeds only two things and god gives us today two things in our lives to make decisions whether it be marriage or job or the way you live or how you live it's always two things his promises and his deeds i want to end with this illustration you know i always watch masterchef because one day i want to be
00:52:44 a master chef but whenever i go to the kitchen my wife groans and terribly grown i don't know whether from the summer or what but how many of you watch master chef put your hands up oh very few people cook here never mind and what they do is that they actually have novice cooks and then basically they put them through a series of tests and they come up beautiful dishes and they have to cook everything within one hour and one of the interesting bits of the competition is that they they give what they call a mystery box a
00:53:19 box and then inside the box are a assortment of things so which you have to make something with and every mystery box is different one you know right and it could be sometimes cheap things things that only cost one dollar or 50 cents and yet you're a master chef ma you have to make it taste beautiful it must paste one dollar thing must taste like 100 ringgit and and i think life is like that isn't it abraham's mystery box has only two things god's promise and god's deeds our mystery box is 1 peter chapter 3 blessed be
00:53:59 god the father of our lord jesus christ according to his great mercy his courses be born again to a living hope through resurrection of jesus from the dead to inheritance that is imperishable undefiled fading kept in heaven for you who by god's power is being guarded through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time his deeds we are born again through the resurrection of jesus christ he has risen that is his deed and we are born again and his promise an inheritance that is imperishable undefiled
00:54:31 unfading kept in heaven for you guarded by god's power learn two things he's given you and your mystery box you open the box it could be you living in malaysia you living in australia you 35 years old you're 23 years old you could be so many things inside the mystery box it could be one dollar thing or 200 dollar things but it's up to you to use those ingredients because each one of you god has led you on a different path each one of you have a different thing inside your mystery box and god is going to guide you using his
00:55:11 deeds and his promises to make a masterpiece out of your life whether in marriage or your job or your service in church you can't look at your mystery boxes hey how come i'm gonna one dollar thing develop a fifty dollar thing you can't say that it's what you do with god has given you god gives you the ingredients everybody's ingredients are different and everybody's power is the same it is god's deeds and god's promises you take god's deeds and god's promises and you open your mystery box and you make the masterpiece of your
00:55:50 life and you only got a certain amount of time you know the most precious commodity in life you know what and the greek philosopher seneca knew this the most precious commodity in life is time and it's not that it's not enough of it you know what it is it's because we waste it you look in your life and how much time that you waste doing all the things that actually don't contribute to your calling for which you stand before god in judgment one day use that time because that time is the one hour
00:56:26 of which you can make your life a masterpiece let's pray father lord we just thank you for your word and before us each day you have our mystery box all the ingredients in life that has been given to us some of them are not very good some of them are eggs some of them are sadness some of them are disastrous in our lives but whatever it is in our mystery box of our lives you have given us two things you've given us your promises which is based on your headset of your steadfast love that you will not let us
00:57:07 go based on your promises and we have seen that your son has risen from the dead we have seen the death cannot overpower him so we're going to ask this day o lord that you fill us help us see align our lives to your calling help us feel your hand in our life just like the servant could feel god's hands and help us trust and be confident on your purposes for us we ask all this for jesus sake amen
