Marriage in the Will of God

Genesis 24:12-26
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, April 14, 2013
Copyright © 2013, P. G. Mathew
Language [Japanese]

As we study Genesis 24, we want to speak particularly to single Christian men and women. From this longest chapter in Genesis, we want to consider marriage in the will of God for true believers in Jesus Christ. Unlike unbelievers, Christians have no freedom to marry just anyone. We are to marry “in the Lord” only true believers of the opposite sex. For Adam, God provided Eve. For Isaac, God ordained Rebekah. For all people, marriage is the general will of God, who himself said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” So God ordains a godly woman for every godly man, unless he wants certain men and women to serve him in the single state. In that case, he gives such people the gift to remain single.

The Faith of Father Abraham

First, then, let us look at the faith of father Abraham. In Genesis 24 we see Abraham totally trusting in God to choose a godly young woman for Isaac, his forty-year-old, godly son. Abraham believed in the principle of Jehovah Jireh (“the Lord provides”). The Lord of the covenant had already provided a substitute lamb for a burnt offering in place of Isaac, so that he could marry and become the father of a great nation, and from whom the Messiah, the Savior of the world, would eventually come. No doubt Abraham reasoned that the Lord who spared Isaac from death would also provide for him a godly wife, chosen by God himself. In fact, this is the message Abraham received from God after God had spared Isaac on Mount Moriah:

The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” (Gen. 22:15–18)

 

God swore by himself because there is no one higher than himself. God alone can be trusted. The Messiah had to come through Isaac’s descendants, for God had said, “Your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him” (Gen. 17:19). The covenant was to be made with Isaac, not Ishmael.

Abraham believed that God would choose a godly wife for Isaac to fulfill God’s eternal purpose for him. So he instructed his most trusted servant (probably Eliezer of Damascus; see Gen. 15:2), who was a believer, to go to his country and kindred to find a God-chosen wife for Isaac. He wanted no ungodly, Canaanite woman for his believing Isaac.

Believers are not to be yoked with unbelievers. Moses instructed the Israelites, “Do not intermarry with [the Canaanites]. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you” (Deut. 7:3–4). Solomon failed to heed this command: “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been” (1 Kings 11:4). So Paul exhorts, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14). Why should believers not marry unbelievers? Because unbelieving spouses can lead believers astray. Only unbelievers, like Esau, married Canaanites.

So the servant was not to take Isaac to Mesopotamia. Isaac must stay in Canaan because the land was given to him and his descendants forever. And eventually the Canaanites would be destroyed because of their wickedness.

The servant was assured of God’s presence to guide him every step of the way to prosper the mission and find the wife chosen by God. The word “Lord,” that is, “Lord of the covenant,” appears at least seventeen times in this chapter. The Lord is the one who would find the girl and control the spouse-finding mission of the servant from beginning to end.

God Is Our Guide

God is our guide. Abraham declared, “The LORD, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father’s household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give this land’—he will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there. . . . The LORD, before whom I have walked, will send his angel with you and make your journey a success, so that you can get a wife for my son from my own clan and from my father’s family” (Gen. 24:7, 40).

God himself acted in this situation. Just as he had led Israel in the wilderness, God led the servant of Abraham until he found the wife God had for Isaac. So Eliezer said, “Praise be to the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned his kindness and faithfulness to my master. As for me, the LORD has led me on the journey to the house of my master’s relatives” (Gen. 24:27; see also verse 48).

The God who saved us also guides our lives every step of the way, whether we are trying to find a job or a godly spouse. So we are to thank this God always for all things. God has a divine plan for our lives, a plan to prosper, deliver, and bring us safely to his very presence. From all eternity he chose us in Christ to be saved. In time he called us by the preaching of the gospel, through effectual calling. He justified us and brought us to his holy church, where we are being sanctified, eventually to be glorified. It is in God’s church where we should also look for a godly spouse, chosen by God from all eternity for us.

We must be careful, however, for there are Canaanites in the church. We need to be led by the Holy Spirit, holy Scripture, and God’s appointed leaders in his holy church. Many people foolishly say, “God is leading me,” when, in fact, lust is leading them. We must beware of such Delilahs and Judases in the church of Jesus Christ.

Parental Responsibility

What about the responsibility of parents in their children’s marriages? Biblically, it is not only the responsibility of the man or woman to find a spouse, for they lack the necessary mature wisdom to make such important decisions. Additionally, chemistry alone is not sufficient (“chemistry” in this context means basing one’s decisions on considerations such as, “But I like her,” or “I like him. He is a hunk of a man.”). Christ, not chemistry, must guide us in this matter.

Christian marriage must be “in the Lord.” God looks not at external appearance, but on the internal beauty of holiness. So we need parental and pastoral counseling. The marriage of Isaac and Rebekah was brought about by God through Isaac’s father Abraham, and Isaac and Rebekah totally submitted to God’s plan. They chose what God chose for them. Notice the last verse in this chapter. It is not speaking about falling in love first and then marriage. The Bible says this couple married, loved, and then lived happily together.

Every person in this chapter was led by God, including pagan Laban. Everyone recognized God’s guidance in the matter of finding a wife for Isaac. Where Christ leads us, we must follow. He never follows us as a puppy. He subdues us to himself, so that we will follow him in the narrow way of his lordship to eternal life.

Purity of the Couple

Consider the godly character of Isaac. He always obeyed God. His father taught him about the God of glory, who led him from his country of birth to Canaan, blessing him all the way. Abraham’s God was the true and living God, not the idols of his fathers.

The godliness of Isaac was proven beyond doubt when he fully submitted to God’s will for his own sacrifice (Gen. 22). Isaac was tested, and he passed the test. His father bound him and placed him on the altar on top of the wood to be killed and burned up for the glory of God. Isaac fully submitted. Then and there he learned the name of God as “Fear,” which Jacob later used: “the Fear of Isaac” (Gen. 31:42).

We are to fear God and obey God. At Sinai, God came in such a fearful way that everyone trembled, including Moses. The fear of God keeps us from sinning. And we sin because we don’t fear God.

Isaac feared God. He trusted God to provide him with a godly wife. He also trusted his father. He stayed in Canaan and waited for God’s provision to come to him.

So the servant, probably Eliezer, arrived with his servants and ten camels loaded with expensive gifts. They stopped outside the town of Nahor, Abraham’s brother. The Lord led them every step of the way.

 

The Importance of Prayer

Eliezer the servant was always praying. He did not want to do anything leaning on to his own understanding. I have heard people lie and say, “God is leading me.” We read, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight” (Prov. 3: 5–6). Paul writes, “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). If you confess, “Jesus is Lord,” by the Holy Spirit, you will want to be led by the Holy Spirit.

God guides his people through prayer. He is the shepherd of his sheep, and they do not want to do anything without prayer. God’s people gladly submit to the good will of God. So this servant prayed for success in finding a godly woman belonging to the people of Abraham.

Look at his prayer:

Then he prayed, “O LORD, God of my master Abraham, give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. May it be that when I say to a girl, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.”Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor. The girl was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever lain with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up again. (Gen. 24:12–16)

 

I believe the first person to come was Rebekah. Notice, she came “before he had finished praying.” Isn’t that wonderful? Isaiah spoke of this: “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear” (Isa. 65:24). Jesus taught us, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened ” (Matt. 7:7–8).

Isaac had already passed a test at Mount Moriah. He feared God and submitted to God’s mysterious will. Now, this servant of Abraham, whose mind was controlled by the angel of God (i.e., by God himself), devised a test to detect the future wife of Isaac. The girl must be a servant at heart: not a self-centered person who demanded that others serve her, but one who sacrificially served others. She should be one who loved God with all her heart and her neighbor as herself, one who would submit to her God and therefore to her husband as to the Lord in everything.

She should also be a virgin, a person of sexual purity. Paul says, “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or of any kind of impurity or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people” (Eph. 5:3). Today many people consider virginity as shame. What is good is seen as evil, and what is evil is seen as good in our modern culture.

In the Old Testament, parents were to guarantee the sexual purity of their children. And if a girl was proven to be immoral, she was killed (Deut. 22). Thank God, we do not kill people for this today. But the point is that Christian women and men must be sexually pure. Paul exhorts, “Flee the evil desires of youth” (2 Tim. 2:22).

Rebekah, like Mary the mother of holy Jesus, was a virgin. Rebekah was pure, humble, gracious, hospitable, industrious, and godly. And she passed the divine test. She gave water to the servant and to the other servants who were with Eliezer. Then she offered to water the camels too. Ten camels may drink 250 gallons of water. She ran to draw the water and completed the task. (PGM) She passed the divine test. Eliezer is now convinced that the God of Abraham has prospered the mission and led him to the bride God has chosen for Isaac. The word “prosper” appears five times in this chapter.

A godly wife is a gift from God: “Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the LORD” (Prov. 19:14). Elsewhere we read, “A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies . . . . She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: ‘Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.’ Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” (Prov. 31:10, 26–30).

Mission Accomplished

The mission was completed successfully. God brought Abraham’s servant to the spouse he had chosen for Isaac.

Rebekah was the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother Nahor, the daughter of Nahor’s son, Bethuel, and the sister of Laban. The Holy Spirit already introduced her in Genesis 22:23. After she watered the camels, Eliezer gave her gold jewelry, a nose ring, and bracelets. Then she ran and reported everything to her brother and parents, who offered hospitality to the guests. But the chief servant refused to eat without concluding the business for his master Abraham. So he retold the story of divine guidance and blessing, how God blessed Abraham with great wealth and how Sarah gave birth to a son in her old age. He told how all the wealth of Abraham would be given to Isaac, and how Abraham had sent him on this mission to find a wife for Isaac from the people of Abraham by divine guidance. Then God worked through the minds of these parents and others. They embraced the will of God that was evident to them all.

Look at Laban and Bethuel’s response: “This is from the LORD; we can say nothing to you one way or the other. Here is Rebekah; take her and go, and let her become the wife of your master’s son, as the LORD has directed” (Gen. 24:50–51). This is marriage in the will of God. The chief servant then gave Rebekah and her family all kinds of expensive gifts that had been carried by the ten camels. Then they ate and drank and praised God for prospering the mission and choosing Rebekah to be the wife of Isaac.

In the morning, the servant desired to leave with Rebekah. But her parents wanted them to stay for at least ten days. The servant refused to agree to this, so they let the girl decide. Did Rebekah say, “Let Isaac come here. I do not want to leave my country, kindred and father’s house, to go to a far away place”? No. When God works, everything is right. Like Ruth, Rebekah, in effect said, “Where you go, I will go; where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people; your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.”

So they called the girl and asked her, “Will you go with this man?” And the Holy Spirit came upon the girl, and she replied, “I will go” (Gen. 24:57–58). In other words, “I will go right now, without delay. I will unite with this man, whether in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in joy or in sorrow. I will go.”

So they left. Let me tell you, she would never return to Aram Naharaim. She was probably about fifteen years of age. It likely took about thirty days to arrive at Canaan, covering about five hundred miles.

The Happy Union

Isaac and Rebekah never dated. In fact, these two never met. This was a God-arranged marriage, a marriage in the will of God. God worked in the heart of Rebekah’s parents, and God worked in her heart too. God worked in the heart of the servant, as well as in the heart of Abraham. God protected everyone on the dangerous journey, and God worked in the heart of Isaac.

Isaac saw her, he brought her into the tent, he took her (meaning he married her) and the text says he loved her and lived happily until death put them apart. Through Isaac and Rebekah came the nation of Israel, and through them came our Messiah, Jesus Christ, our Isaac, our Bridegroom.

God the Father has chosen us as his bride from all eternity. Even now Christ is making us holy and glorious. So we read, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. . . . This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:25–27, 32).

Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification. Why did he die the shameful death of the cross? Because he loved us. Christ died to make atonement for our sins. The Father chose us in Christ to make us holy and blameless. Christ died our death to make us holy and blameless, so that we may be his glorious bride. All his riches the Father gave to him, and therefore, all his riches belong to us. And all our liabilities he took, and he paid all our debts.

Jesus paid it all,

all to him I owe;

sin had left a crimson stain,

he washed it white as snow.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matt. 5:8). Even now we see him by faith. He is with us, he is in us, we are in him. By faith we are united with him. Nothing in all creation is able to separate us from God and his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

God’s Son will have a beautiful bride. Paul says, “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him” (2 Cor. 11:2). God will have a holy bride. If you are not holy, you don’t belong to him. You are a Canaanite. You are a Judas in the midst of the church. So we read, “Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: ‘Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.’ (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)” (Rev. 19:6–8). Christ’s bride will be holy.

 

Application

1. True believers must marry only those who are also true believers in Christ. Don’t be fooled by people’s self-predication and self-declaration. We need proof of holiness.
2. Dating is for discovering whether a potential spouse truly loves and fears God. If proven that person is a Canaanite, have nothing to do with that person. Avoid Jezebels and Judases.
3. Sexual purity is a serious requirement. Those who sinned sexually must repent and prove their repentance by a transformed life of sexual purity.
4. As God ordained Rebekah for Isaac, so God ordains godly spouses for his people. Trust God and pray that you may be led by the Spirit, Scripture, and the church.
5. We are to choose that person whom God has chosen for us. God will never choose a person who is wicked, whether man or woman. As God brought Isaac and Rebekah together, even so God will bring you to a godly spouse in his time, if marriage is God’s will for you.
6. Don’t say, “God led every step of the way and brought about our marriage,” when it is not true and you know it.
7. If God brought about your marriage, you will not divorce, because God hates divorce.
8. Study and fully submit to the will of God revealed in the word of God.
9. Pray earnestly for a godly spouse and godly children long before you are married.
10. Live a godly life.
11. Seek the counsel of godly parents and pastors.

May God help us to follow him as we seek to do his will. And may he, in his time, provide husbands and wives for his people as they seek to serve him.