Isaac’s Marriage

Good morning, Good News Church. My name is Mario. I'm one of the pastors here.

Most of you know that I'm a pastor. However, sometimes I like to do other things on the side.

And so I am also the assistant director of the theater program at my kid's school.

And this year we are doing the classic Broadway show Fiddler on the Roof.

And yeah, isn't that exciting? Okay. Some of the actors in my cast are right

over there. Good to see you guys.

So the reason I bring that up is because there's a scene in Fiddler on the Roof

that reminds me of something that we are covering in today's Bible passage.

So we are in From Abraham to Joseph, part two.

We are going to cover Genesis chapter 24 this morning.

Genesis 24 · chapter mention

And if you are unfamiliar with the play Fiddler on the Roof,

the plot of the play revolves around the idea of arranged marriage.

The main character's name is Tevye and he has five daughters and he's trying

to find husbands for his five daughters.

And the five daughters don't want him to find husbands for them.

They want to fall in love with their own people and fall in love with their

own men and figure it out on their own.

And he's trying to set it up because of the traditions of their village.

And so the plot of the movie revolves around that, or the plot of the play revolves around that.

And the reason that that is the plot device that the play sort of revolves around

is not because the author thought to himself, hey, let me make up this crazy

thing that is unheard of in this world.

And it will be the plot device of this play. I'll come up with this play.

It'll almost be like a science fiction play. I'll come up with this crazy alternate

universe where parents choose their kids' spouses and then see what comes of that in the story.

That's not why the author wrote the play the way he did. The reason he wrote

it the way he did is because it's historically accurate.

It's actually based on true stories.

Arranged marriage was the norm for most of human history. Did you know that?

Our current ideas of how marriage needs to be built on attraction and the people

need to choose their own spouses,

that's about like 200 years old, maybe 250 years old in the scheme of history,

At least right around 200, 250 years ago is when that idea became popular enough

that it became widespread.

All of history before then was not like that.

Well, why? Why wasn't the way it is now? Because most of us are like pretty

committed to, we like the idea of what we, that we believe now.

In fact, some of you maybe until this moment never even thought about that it

was different for all of human history and that we believe something fairly new.

Why is it that they did it in a different way? And I think that there might

be more than one right answer, but I think one of the big correct answers is survival.

Survival was one of the reasons that they did it the way they did it.

About a year and a half ago, I explained something to you that I'm going to

say again, because some of you weren't here a year and a half ago.

But when we did our series on the book of Ruth about a year and a half ago,

I said something to you guys that applied to that text that I think also applies to this one.

And that is, if you were to be living in a world that was like,

let's say like terrible things happen in America and we were suddenly in like

apocalyptic conditions, you would choose your friends differently than the way you do now.

Do you remember, some of you remember that I said that, right?

If we're in the middle of an apocalypse and water is scarce and food is scarce

and electricity is scarce and bad guys like could just come over the horizon

at any moment and kill you, you would make different decisions about your friendships.

Right now, the decisions you make about who would be your friend has a lot to

do with things like personality compatibility and if they're kind to you or

if they're fun to be around.

But in a more like survivalistic culture, like there's scarcity and they could

come kill us at any moment.

Like you would be basing your relationships on who can fish,

who can hunt, who can treat wounds without getting me infected,

who can build stuff, who's good with weapons and can defend us if the bad people

come from over the hill and come to destroy our village tonight.

And so what I said then and what I'm re-saying now is for most of human history,

they were living in that culture.

They were living in a survivalist culture. This food was scarce.

Water was scarce. There was no electricity.

The odds of somebody coming over the hill and attacking the village and killing

everybody tomorrow was way higher back then.

That was like a much more real anxiety for them than it is for us.

And it affected how they did marriage because they would ask themselves questions

like, what, like, which decision should I make in, in that will cause me to live longer?

What decision will be best for my family? What decision will be best for the survival of my village?

Okay. So if this were like 400 years ago and you were there in your house with

your mom and you looked out the window and you saw a cute boy, right?

And you were like, Hey mom, what about him? You know, she would say, no.

Yeah, but he's cute. It doesn't matter how attractive he is.

You're going to marry the blacksmith, son.

Why? Because I want you to be alive 10 years from now, right?

You're not going to marry the hottie that don't know how to do anything.

So, in Fiddler on the Roof, there is this scene where this character named Model

is going to Tevye, the main character in the play, and asking if he can marry his daughter.

And he is not the person that has been arranged for the daughter.

But he's trying to convince the dad to make an exception.

And the argument that he makes in the play is interesting. He does not simply

go up to Tevye and he says, we love each other. And love is all that matters.

That's not what he says. That's probably what a more modern play would say.

He does not. This is what he says when he's trying to convince the guy,

can I marry your daughter? he says this.

This is a quote from the play. He says, I promise you, Reb Tevye,

your daughter will not starve.

Why would he say that? As he's trying to pitch the idea of letting your daughter

marry me, that's what he says. He says, I promise you, your daughter will not

starve. Why does he say that?

Because that's what mattered to him. That's what mattered to that father.

And that's not the situation that we are in, okay?

When I asked my wife to marry me before she was my wife, when I asked my then

girlfriend Heidi to marry me. This was almost 25 years ago now.

When I went to her dad and talked to him about it before we got married,

I did not say to him, I promise your daughter will not starve. Okay.

It didn't even cross my mind to say that.

And he didn't ask me, he didn't say, well, will my daughter starve?

He didn't ask me anything about the food supply at all.

So I bring all this up because in today's passage, Genesis chapter 24,

Genesis 24 · chapter mention

Isaac and Rebecca get married and the arrangement for their marriage is made

before they ever meet each other.

The arrangement is made by their parents. And it appears to me that maybe they

even get married on the same day that they meet each other.

And so as I read you this morning's text, I just was thinking there may be some

of you who might, as I read it, go like, this is crazy.

Why were they so stupid back then? And I guess what I'm trying to say to you is they weren't stupid.

Conditions were different. All right. So Genesis chapter 24.

Genesis 24 · chapter mention

I'm going to start reading to you in the first verse. We are literally picking

up right where we left off last week.

So last week, remember the field with its cave passed from the Hittites to Abraham as a burial place.

This is the very next sentence. Genesis 24, starting in verse one.

Abraham was now old, getting on in years, and the Lord had blessed him in everything.

Abraham said to his servant, the elder of his household who managed all he owned,

place your hand under my thigh and I will have you swear by the Lord,

God of heaven and God of earth,

that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites

among whom I live, but will go to my land and my family to take a wife for my son Isaac.

The servant said to him, suppose the woman is unwilling to follow me to this land.

Should I have your son go back to the land that you came from?

Abraham answered him, make sure that you don't take my son back there.

The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from my

native land, who spoke to me and swore to me, I will give this land to your

offspring. He will send his angel before you and you can take a wife from my son from there.

If the woman is unwilling to follow you, then you're free from this oath to me.

But don't let my son go back there. So the servant placed his hand under his

master Abraham's thigh and swore an oath to him concerning this matter.

So Abraham here is instructing his servant to go find a wife for his son Isaac.

The part about putting your hand under your thigh obviously is very weird in

our culture because that's not how we do it. I think it was not so weird in their culture.

We do have things in our culture that I think are similar.

I think that put your hand under my thigh and say, by the name of the Lord of

the God of heaven and earth, I will not.

I think that that's probably kind of a cross between a handshake and put my

hand on the Bible and I swear I will tell the truth, okay? Because those are

things that we do in our culture.

Sometimes we shake someone's hand as a way of saying, like, I agree to what you just said.

And sometimes to make an oath, we will put our hand on a Bible and we put our

other hand up in the air, right?

And we will say, I promise this. And I think that's what's happening here,

but they had a different sign for it, okay? So the guy's saying,

okay, I promise I will do that. I take the oath.

So Abraham asks him to do something. And it's, you can tell there's something

like very particular that he's concerned about.

In fact, it seems to me that Abraham is trying to balance two different things.

Two different things that are almost like at odds with one another.

One thing is that he's concerned about is God has called us to this land.

Okay. He's like, we're here in the promised land because God told us to come

to this land. We need to remain on this land.

But he also is concerned about, we should not intermarry with the Canaanites.

And that's the people who live in this land.

So you can see how there's a problem here. Cause he's like, well,

we're supposed to live here, but we need to continue the generations of people

here, but we're not supposed to marry the people that are here.

Right? So we can't go back home because this is the land God's called us to,

but we don't want to intermarry with these people.

So how do I, how do I pull both of these things off when it comes to my son?

So he says, I got an idea, servant. I want you to go back to our land where

our family is from and get somebody there and bring them here.

So we don't intermarry with the Canaanites and yet we live in the land that

God has promised us. So that's the whole reason that all of this happens.

So he tells the guy to do it. The guy says, okay. And we pick up in verse 10.

The servant took 10 of his master's camels and departed with all kinds of his master's goods in hand.

Then he set out for Nahor's town, Aram Naharim.

He made the camels kneel beside a well of water outside the town at evening.

This was the time when the women went out to draw water. Now I just want to

point out, this is not a ton of words, but a lot of time passes in just these few words.

Like the verse just before this, the guy was saying to Abraham,

sure, I'll do it. And then the next verse, he takes 10 camels.

And then suddenly he says, he set out for Nahor's town. In the very next verse,

he's there beside a well. Okay.

So it almost seems like Nahor's town is like next door because of how quick

that verse is, but it's not.

He has to go all the way back to where Abraham's from. By the way,

Nahor is Abraham's brother.

So he's going back to the land that Abraham's from. As best as I can tell, this is over 400 miles.

So over 400 miles by camel means several weeks past in just these few words right here.

Okay. So don't just read this and go, oh, that took me like 10 seconds to read.

I guess that's how long it took them.

Weeks of their life it took for all of this to happen.

And then they get there, and there's a well outside the town. Verse 12.

Lord, God of my master Abraham, he prayed, give me success today and show kindness to my master Abraham.

I am standing here at the spring where the daughters of the men of the town

are coming out to draw water.

Let the girl to whom I say, please lower your water jug so that I may drink,

and who responds, drink, and I'll water your camels also.

Let her be the one that you have appointed for your servant Isaac.

By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.

So what I want to point out here is, first of all, I believe that the servant

of Abraham, whose name is not given, but he's kind of a main character in this story.

The servant of Abraham, I think, is a believer.

He is a believer in the true God. How do you know he's a believer in the true God?

Well, because he is praying to God. He's praying to Yahweh. He's praying to

the God of his master, Abraham.

And he's praying to Abraham's God when Abraham is not around to hear it.

So back in the promised land, I could imagine a servant might pray out loud,

I pray to, you know, whatever, whatever he thinks his master wants to hear.

But at this point of the story, he is hundreds of miles away from Abraham.

Abraham does not know what he's talking about, what he's praying about,

what he's thinking about.

And he is praying to Abraham's God. I think because this is a genuine,

not performative prayer, right? He really believes.

And so he's asking, please help me to be able to find my master's son's wife.

And so he asks for a sign. May she be the one who, when I ask for her water,

she not only gives me water, but she gives us enough water for the camels as well.

I do want to point out something that it's not a problem in this story,

but sometimes it's a problem in life. So I just want to bring it up.

I think that asking God for a sign has the potential to be problematic at times.

Okay. And so just as the pastor of this church and someone who talks with you

guys about how to figure out God's will for your life and what you should do,

I just wanted to point this out at this point in the story.

I do think that there are other places in the Bible that make this clear.

I do think there are times when asking God for signs can be problematic.

It is not a problem in this story. As I keep reading, you will see it's not a problem at all.

The story goes exactly as it should, but I think it can be a problem.

When we start getting into this, well, God, if you want me to do this,

make this happen. And if you want me to do this, make this happen.

And God, I'm not going to do this unless you do this.

Like that has the potential to be a very manipulative thing and not the way

you ought to live your life.

I can remember like a really good example of how this can be manipulative and bad.

I remember when I was in high school and I went to youth group,

they did this skit and there was this guy, the guy that got up on stage,

he had all this like stuff in his arms.

And then there was a hula hoop that was on the stage.

And he said, Lord, of my stuff, whatever it is that you would like for me to

give to the poor, may it fall into this hula hoop.

All right. And then he chucks the stuff so hard, it goes like way to the other

side of the stage. So there was like no hope that it would ever fall into the hula hoop.

And so it remains empty. And then he says, Lord, I now know it is your will

that I would not give anything to the poor. Right.

And that's the kind of thing that I mean that when we do this whole,

like, well, God, if you do this, I'll do this.

We have, we have the potential to do things that are wrong and manipulative.

And so I just wanted to point that out when it comes to signs from God.

However, that is not what's happening in this case. In this case,

he's saying, please lead me to the kind, wonderful girl that you have set aside

for Isaac. And look what happens. Verse 15.

Before he had finished speaking, so before he even goes like,

amen, there's a girl there.

Before he'd finished speaking, there was Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel,

son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham's brother, Nahor, coming with a jug on her shoulder.

Now the girl was very beautiful, a young woman who had not known a man intimately.

She went down to the spring, filled her jug and came up. Then the servant ran

to meet her and said, please let me have a little water from your jug.

She replied, drink, my Lord. Remember, this was the test. Drink,

my Lord. she quickly lowered her jug to her hand and gave him a drink.

And when she had finished giving him a drink, she said, I'll also draw water

for your camels until they have had enough to drink.

She quickly emptied her jug into the trough and hurried to the well again to draw water.

She drew water for all his camels while the man silently watched her to see

whether or not the Lord had made his journey a success.

After the camels had finished drinking, the man took a gold ring weighing half

a shekel and for her wrists, two bracelets weighing 10 shekels of gold.

Whose daughter are you, he asked. Please tell me, is there room in your father's

house for us to spend the night?

He says, us there. I'm guessing there were other guys on the camel,

though they haven't been mentioned yet. I guess he came not just all by himself.

Please tell me, is there room for your father's house for us to spend the night?

Now that is like in modern day terms, that's super weird.

Like that's creepy. Hey, I just met you five minutes ago. Can I go to your dad's

house tonight and spend the night?

But in that culture, I don't think it would have been creepy at all. There were no hotels.

There were no hotels. Like it was much more common to show up and go,

hey, does anybody have an extra room? Does anybody have extra space for me to be able to stay?

And the fact that he gives like a ring and two golden bracelets probably indicates

to her, like, I'm not a freeloader. I'm willing to pay.

I'm willing to give gifts in return for a place to spend the night.

I just need a place to spend the night.

Verse 26, she answered him, I am the daughter of Bethuel, son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.

She also said to him, we have plenty of straw and feed and a place to spend the night.

Now when she says, I'm the daughter of Bethuel, so Bethuel is the son of Nahor.

Nahor is the brother of Abraham, which means this girl, Rebecca,

that he happens to bump into at the spring, who fits the exact criteria that

he had prayed about, is Abraham's brother's granddaughter, okay?

And he's looking for a wife for Isaac. So that means this, in relationship to

Isaac, this woman would be Isaac's cousin once removed.

And that's what Abraham had said, like, go to my family and go find someone,

not Canaanite, someone that's from our family. So he finds Isaac's cousin once removed.

Once removed meaning not a direct cousin, but one generation separate from a cousin.

Now, I know some of you, again, might look at that and go, oh,

cousin, I can't, it doesn't matter. Throw once removed, that doesn't make it

any better. Cousin, cousin, ugh.

Like, well, I can't believe that was a thing back then. And so I just want to

let you know, I checked online.

It is still legal to marry your cousin once removed in 44 of the 50 U.S.

States right now, okay? Do with that what you will.

Verse 26, then the man bowed down, worshiped the Lord, and said,

praise the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not withheld his kindness

and faithfulness from my master.

As for me, the Lord has led me on the journey to the house of my master's relatives.

So what is he doing here? He's praising God.

Why is he praising God? I think he's saying, what are the odds that this worked

out? Like, thank you, Lord. This had to be you.

The fact that I would find the right town, the fact that the first person I

would bump into is the right person, the fact that I would pray and it would

be the very person who watered my candles, just like I was praying about.

This is a world where there's no phones, there's no Google Maps,

there's no Instagram, there's no tell people ahead of time I'm coming.

And he gets led into this exact situation. And so he sees this as God's leading.

And remember, Abraham had said to him, the Lord will send his angel ahead of you, right?

God's going to guide you in this whole thing. If it doesn't work out,

fine. You don't have to do it, but it's going to work out.

God will send his angel to guide you. And I think this guy is now praying,

going like that. That happened.

You led me here, Lord. So he goes to her house.

I'm going to skip to that part. They sit down for dinner and he says,

before we eat dinner, I got to tell you, I got to tell you what I'm here for. So verse 34.

I am Abraham's servant, he said, which I'm assuming they would know.

So this is granddad's brother, Abraham.

We've heard his name before. I am Abraham's servant, he said.

The Lord has greatly blessed my master and he has become rich.

He has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, male and female slaves and camels and donkeys.

Sarah, my master's wife, bore

a son to my master in her old age and he has given him everything he owns.

My master put me under this oath. You will not take a wife for my son from the

daughters of the Canaanites in whose land I live, but will go to my father's

household and to my family to take a wife for my son.

So I want you to notice he's making his pitch. Like, this is what I'm here for.

I'm supposed to bring back a wife for Isaac.

And as he makes his pitch, it seems to me, well, the first thing he does is

he emphasizes Isaac's wealth. Do you see that?

Now you might say, no, no, he emphasized Abraham's wealth, right?

He said, Abraham has sheep and cattle and gold and male and female servants and camels and donkeys.

Yes, and then after that, he says, Sarah, my master's wife, bore a son to my

master in her old age. This is not an incidental detail here.

And he has given him everything he owns.

So he says, hey, I just want to let you know, I work for like a millionaire,

okay? I work for a multi, multi-millionaire.

And then all of his stuff is going to his son, okay? And I'm here to try to

find a wife for his son. So I just want to, if you're wondering why I'm in town,

I'm just, I'm trying to find a girl because I just, there's this lonely billionaire back there.

Over here that just, I'm supposed to get a wife for the lonely billionaire.

I just don't know if that'd be of interest to you. And I think what he's doing

here is I think he's trying to do the best he can to make his offer attractive to them.

After he emphasizes Isaac's wealth, he then goes on for about 10 or 12 more

verses describing the story of what happened at the well.

Okay. I'm not going to read that part because we've already read that part,

right? So it's kind of a doublet in Genesis.

The narrator tells us the whole story. Then the servant tells the whole story

to Rebecca's family. Okay. So I'm not going to read it a second time,

but the story gets told all over again.

We know it before he tells it because we have Genesis.

Rebecca's family didn't have Genesis. They were hearing it for the very first

time in that moment. So he tells the whole story to them.

And as he tells the story, he does, he tells the story correctly in the sense

of, at least the part he gets right is like, I showed up and I prayed this prayer

and the exact thing happened.

And like the, he emphasizes God's role in arranging these unlikely circumstances.

In fact, I feel like that's what he, like, Abraham's servant sort of has a two-point

sermon, okay? This is what I've come here to tell you.

Isaac's super rich, and God arranged these very unlikely circumstances that

brought me to this moment.

So they respond, verse 50, Laban and Bethuel answered.

And by the way, Laban is Rebekah's brother, Bethuel is Rebekah's dad.

Laban and Bethuel answered, this is from the Lord. We have no choice in the matter.

Rebekah is here in front of you. Take her and go and let her be a wife for your

master's son, just as the Lord has spoken.

The next thing Abraham's servant does is he gives the family expensive gifts,

like from Abraham that he had brought with him.

He gives the mom expensive gifts. He gives the brother expensive gifts.

He gives Rebekah herself.

Expensive gifts. And then the next morning he wakes up and he says,

we need to go back to Abraham and Isaac right away. And then the family tries to delay him.

So he says, okay, thank you so much. Let's go back now. And they go,

no, no, no, no. Let her stay here for 10 more days. Like we,

I mean, we just met you yesterday.

We didn't even know that she was going to go. So we would, we would like to

spend at least 10 more days with her before she goes.

So no. And he says, no, I, yes, I cannot wait. We've got to go now.

So then they say, well, let's ask her if she's ready to go like all of a sudden.

She just met you yesterday.

Let's see if she's ready to suddenly go today. And they ask her and she goes,

yeah, I'm ready to go right now.

It is. It might not come up on the screen, but verse 58, they said,

will you go with this man? And she replied, I will go. Okay.

So I guess trying to point out, she doesn't get to decide who she marries.

At least it doesn't seem to me. It seems they decided who she married.

But the story does not present her as reluctant, okay?

It seems, according to verse 58, that she was more ready to go.

I have no clue what the family situation was like. I had no clue what had happened

the weeks leading up to this, but it seems as though she was ready to go even

quicker than her family was ready to let her go.

All right, verse 61. Then Rebecca and her female servants got up,

mounted the camels, which is interesting.

So she has female servants. She gets to bring like a little entourage with her. It's.

Rebecca and her female servants, they got up, they mounted the camels,

and they followed the man. So the servant took Rebecca and left.

Now Isaac was returning. So here's another one of those like weeks past.

Now Isaac was returning from Bir Lahoroi, for he was living in the Gev region.

And in the early evening, Isaac went out to walk in the field.

And looking up, he saw camels coming.

Rebecca looked up, and when she saw Isaac, she got down from her camel and asked

the servant, who is that man in the field coming to meet us?

The servant answered, it is my master.

So she took her veil and covered herself. Okay. Now, why does she do that?

Well, the passage doesn't say why, but based on what we know of culture and

the other clues that are in this passage, she is getting prepared for the wedding.

Okay. She's being prepared to marry this guy. When he says, yeah,

that's the multimillionaire son that I told you about.

Then she goes, okay, well then it's time I realized that's what I'm here for.

I'm here to marry him. So she puts her veil on. I think the idea is keeping

the veil on until they do whatever it is they're going to do and they get married

and then now they're married and she takes the veil off.

Verse 66, then the servant told Isaac everything he had done.

And Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother, Sarah. You remember last

week Sarah died? I mean, she didn't die last week. She died a long time ago.

But remember last week's sermon where we talked about Sarah's death?

So Sarah had just died. So her tent is available.

So he brought her into the tent of his mother, Sarah, and took Rebecca to be

his wife. Isaac loved her and he was comforted after his mother's death.

It appears to me that they marry immediately. Okay. We do not know that for

sure because I've already pointed out to you that several weeks passed during verse 10.

And so it could be that when it says that they, you know, they went to the tent and they got married.

I mean, it could be that she lived there for a little while and they were engaged

for a period of time and they planned out a wedding for everybody to come to.

And then they had the wedding and then they were married. And maybe that took

place, you know, I don't know if that took place in the first hour that she

was there or the first several weeks that she was there. It's hard to know.

But it seems like they got married soon after meeting each other.

However it went down, it was obviously very, very, very, very different than

modern dating. And then that's how the passage ends.

So what can we learn from this story? Okay.

Most of the time that I teach you a Bible passage, I don't just say like,

and that's what the Bible says. And then we all leave.

It's good to know, well, what do we do with this? What can we learn from this story?

So I made a little chart for you and there's going to be two things that I want

to teach you, two questions that I want to answer when we learn from this story.

I want to talk about what would this have meant to an ancient Israelite?

And then what does this teach us? Okay.

So under here, I'm going to talk about what would this have meant to an ancient Israelite?

And then what does this teach us? And you might go, okay, that's great,

but why don't you just skip to this? Like, what does it matter what it meant

to an ancient Israelite? Ah, good question. Here's why it matters.

When you're trying to understand what a text means, particularly an ancient

text like this, it is good to ask yourself, not what did the author of this

mean for me to get out of it?

The author of this wasn't even thinking about you.

I'm just talking about the human author. I mean, we realize God is the writer

of the Bible, but he used humans to write it.

And the human author, we are not the immediate audience for Genesis.

This was written to the ancient Israelites, okay? After they had already settled the promised land.

I think so. So the question is, what was the original author intending when

he was writing this to his original audience?

So I want to give you three things that I think this would have meant to an

ancient Israelite. And then we'll talk about how it applies to us.

Number one, Abraham didn't want his son to marry a Canaanite,

okay? An ancient Israelite who have read this story would have noticed that.

It comes up multiple times in the story. Actually, it's the plot device of the

whole, like that's the reason the story is the way it is, because Abraham did

not want his son to marry a Canaanite. And Abraham says it flat out.

And then the servant re-says it when he does the pitch to the family.

Okay. So this is something that comes up multiple times in the text.

They would have noticed this.

The story, as I read it in Genesis, does not say why Abraham didn't want this.

But I believe an ancient Israelite would not have even need to be told.

Like this was against their laws. Like the Israelite laws for marriage already

told them that they weren't supposed to marry the Canaanites.

So when they read this story, they would be like, well, yeah,

of course, this matches what we already know about God's will for marriage.

This already matches our marriage laws.

The ancient Israelites were not supposed to intermarry with the Canaanites.

And the reason that they were given was that the Canaanites,

if they were married to them, would turn them away from the true God.

Like, I want you all to follow me. So I don't want you to intermarry with these

people who do not follow me.

So they knew that. And when they read this story, they would see that this goes

all the way back to the time of Abraham.

Yes, we're not doing that right now. And this goes all the way back to Abraham's time.

Okay, second thing that this would have meant to an ancient Israelite,

God was behind the circumstances of Isaac's marriage.

I think an ancient Israelite reading this story after the fact would have agreed

with the servant when he's like, this must be of God.

Like God is the one that's leading this story because what are the odds?

Look at how this all unfolded.

I think the average ancient Israelite would agree with Bethul and Laban and

Rebekah, like all the people in the story that go, oh, this is God who has arranged this.

I think they would have said, yeah, that's what I think happened.

God was behind the circumstances of Isaac's marriage.

Number three, what would this have meant to an ancient Israelite?

They would realize their existence traces back to this union.

This is a big deal. As they hear this story, this is not a story that they would

hear like dispassionately. Like it's just a story about two people that like lived a long time ago.

They would realize this is not just a story about two historical figures.

This is a story about great, great, great, great, great, great,

great, great, great, great, great, great, great, grandma and grandpa.

This is where we came from. In fact, the story mentions them.

They would realize like we came from these people because the story mentions

the ancient Israelites.

I did not read it to you when I was reading through the first time,

but I'm going to go back. I skipped verse 60. I'm going to go back and read you verse 60 now. Um.

In verse 60, and I don't think I gave you this back there, so sorry.

You're just going to have to trust that I'm really reading from my Bible because

I don't think it's going to come up.

In verse 60, Rebecca, as she's about to leave, her family speaks a blessing

over her, and this is what they say.

They say, they blessed Rebecca saying to her, our sister, may you become thousands upon ten thousands.

May your offspring possess the gates of their enemies.

As Rebecca was getting on the camels to leave, they said, we hope that there

are many descendants that come from you. We hope that you are a mother of a

great nation that conquers their enemies.

The ancient Israelites who would be reading this like hundreds of years later

would read that and go, oh, that's us. We are the thousands upon 10,000s.

We are the offspring that are possessing the gates of our enemies or supposed

to be possessing the gates of our enemies.

So all three of these things are not, I don't think, like, I don't think I made

any of them up. I think I read all of these in books that are about this passage.

These are things I think that ancient Israelites would have noticed and learned

from this story. Now, how does this apply to us in principle?

How do the principles within the book of Genesis apply to our situation?

So what does this teach us?

Number one, I want to say in principle, this can remind us to not marry non-Christians. Okay?

Why do I say that? Well, I'm saying that because the ancient Israelites would

have understood we're not supposed to intermarry with people who are going to

pull us away from our God.

So now here we are in the New Testament following that same God,

and we also are not supposed to marry people who would pull us away from our God.

Deuteronomy chapter seven, verses three and four, when God tells them to not

intermarry with the people of the land, he says that this is a quote from Deuteronomy chapter seven.

He says, the reason you shouldn't do it is because, quote, they will turn your

sons away from me to worship other gods.

So this is helpful to understand. I don't think it's about ethnicity.

Like when God says don't marry Canaan, he's not saying people shouldn't marry

people that don't look like them, right?

He's not saying it's a problem if someone marries someone who has a different

skin color than them or has a different eye shape than them or something.

That's not what he's saying.

This is not an interethnic marriage being forbidden. He's not forbidding interracial marriage here.

He's forbidding interfaith marriage, right? He's saying you should not marry

someone who doesn't believe me.

You should not marry someone who's going to turn you away from me.

You need to marry someone who will continue to be faithful to me,

help you to be faithful to me. They understood that.

I think that still applies. That's not just an Old Testament thing.

We would be people who do not want to marry someone who will turn us away from our God.

In fact, I think that there's hints of this in the New Testament.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 7, there's a command that I can only interpret as matching

1 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

this. It's 1 Corinthians chapter 7.

1 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

You can read the whole chapter sometime. It's an interesting chapter.

1 Corinthians 7 is about marriage.

And the writer, Paul, he tells them a whole bunch of things,

whether you should get married, under what conditions you should get married

or not get married. What if you want a divorce?

What should you do that? What if the person wants to stay with you?

What if the person doesn't want to stay with you? What if the person dies?

Okay, all that sort of stuff, he answers those questions. And when he gets to

1 Corinthians 7, verse 39, and again, I don't think this one's coming up on

1 Corinthians 7:39

the screen either, but this is what it says.

He's talking about a Christian woman and the Christian woman's husband died.

And the question is, well, now what? Like, what can she do now?

And this is what Paul says.

Talking about the Christian woman whose husband died, he says,

she is free to be married to anyone she wants, only in the Lord.

Isn't that interesting? So he said, okay, well, it's late. If the husband died,

now what's she's supposed to do? First of all, she's free.

It seems to me she can get married or not get married. She can do whatever she wants.

And if she chooses to be married, she can marry anybody she wants.

It doesn't even have to be arranged.

She can just say, I like him and she can marry him. But then it doesn't just

end with be married to anyone she wants.

It's to be married to anyone she wants only in the Lord.

I can only assume that that means she can marry any Christian she wants.

She can marry anyone who will help her continue to follow God.

But of course, we shouldn't do the opposite of what we've been told all along.

All right, principle number two, what does this story teach us?

The principle here in this passage

can remind us that God is behind the circumstances of our own lives.

We see that God is behind the circumstances of Isaac marriage.

We actually see that that's not something that's unique to this story.

God is behind the circumstances of Abraham's life.

God is behind the circumstances of Jacob's life and Joseph's life and Rebecca's life.

And Ruth's life and Esther's life and King David's life and the apostle Peter's

life and the apostle Paul's life.

And if you just read through the Bible, you'll notice God is behind the circumstances

of a whole lot of people's lives.

Why is that? I think it's because God is behind the circumstances of all of our lives.

He is sovereign over us. He is involved. He is not an uninvolved God watching

to see what might happen to us.

He's involved in the very details of our life. Do you believe that?

I do. I do too.

Number three, we can realize that the Christian church owes its existence to

Jesus who also came from this union.

So just like they would go, oh, our existence traces back to this union.

The Christian church goes back to Jesus. If he had not died on the cross,

if he had not rose again, if he had not established the Christian church,

then we would not be here.

And Jesus's existence comes from this union. I mean, not his pre-existence before

he comes here, but as far as like him being a human on this earth,

he had Rebecca and Isaac as his great, great, great, great, great,

great, great, great, great grandparents.

And so Jesus on this earth comes from this union. Jesus, I guess what I'm saying is this.

We, all of us in this room, would not be doing what we are doing right now if

it were not for the family of Isaac and Rebecca producing the Messiah who died

on the cross for our sins, who rose again and offers us eternal life,

and who began the Christian church.

So if you go, does this story have anything to do with me? Yes,

yes, this story affects us.

It is a part of the big story that we were brought into by faith in Jesus Christ.

Let's pray.

God, I thank you for this passage.

I thank you for the reminder that we see in Abraham's life and then later on

we see it with the Israelites, and then later on we see it with Paul talking the Corinthians.

I mean, there are a bunch of young people at this church. I know that there's

middle schoolers that are able to hear what I'm saying right now and high schoolers

and college students and people in their 20s and early 30s trying to figure

out what they're gonna do relationally,

whether they're gonna get married, who they're gonna marry.

And so I thank you for this reminder that if our whole life is about you,

then of course our future marriage is going to be about you.

And so I pray that we would be people who choose who to marry based on our relationship to you.

That we would choose someone that would help us to follow you better and not

choose someone that would cause us to follow you worse.

And so I pray for that. I pray for that to happen in the lives of the young

people that are in this room and I pray it would be a blessing to them.

I thank you for being the God who arranges the circumstances of our lives.

I mean, I just see it all over scripture.

And sometimes when things are going good, we don't really give you credit for

it. Sometimes when things are going bad, we blame you for it and go,

why are you allowing this?

But I pray that we would be your people who worship you, who believe you're

sovereign over us, who trust that you are involved in the details of our lives,

the difficult ones and the good ones, and that it's for our good and your glory.

And so we love you and we praise you for that. And we thank you for Jesus.

Jesus, we believe you are God, and yet you came here as a person through the

line of Isaac and Rebecca.

And we believe that by dying on

the cross, you purchased to people for yourself, and we are those people.

And so we are part of a story that started way before us and goes on for a long,

long, long time, forever, forever.

And so we thank you for bringing us into that story. We thank you for loving us into that story.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Let me end with these good words from God's word.

This is Romans chapter 8 verse 28 we know that all things work together for

Romans 8:28

the good of those who love God those who are called according to his purpose that is good news.