God is capable of guiding His people, both through sovereign intervention and in response to our seeking His will. The story of Abraham’s servant finding a wife for Isaac illustrates key principles in discerning God’s guidance. These include taking practical steps, praying specifically, watching for God’s response, and being willing to follow His lead. While God may not always answer in the way we expect, He honours those who earnestly seek His direction. Ultimately, finding God’s will involves a balance of divine providence and human responsibility, underpinned by a life of prayer and trust in the Lord’s steadfast love.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] And those who’ve been around the church for a number of years have probably heard me preach on this before because it’s one of my favorite passages, but it always seems to draw me back to see again the fact that God is capable of leading his people and helping them. You know about the question of guidance. There are some things that happened in your life where you didn’t pray about it, just an event occurred and you didn’t have a choice. There are some things in your life where God gets his way by sovereignly stepping in over all other matters, and that has happened to all sorts of godly people and general Christians. We can’t rule out the fact that sometimes God gets his way by just stepping in. But on the other hand the Bible also gives explanations and illustrations of the need

[00:00:54] that we have to seek to let him guide us. do so by trusting in his leadership and it’s a very precarious area to talk about finding the will of God. Very often it’s a question that people ask all through their lives, how can I be certain that I’ve done the right thing or made the right choice or do not simply know what to do next. And we ask God and we go of God, and we’re not certain how a Christian can find the will of God. We’re looking at an example of someone finding God’s will and help. It’s not someone who is a Christian per se, because it’s the Old Testament and it’s in the old covenant days. Yet it is a godly example of how God can lead, so it’s that question of does God lead Christians or lead God’s people, to find where He wants them to go. I’m not ruling out the fact sometimes

[00:01:57] he gets us there whether we like it or not. I’m not ruling out the fact that sometimes we are guided because it’s so simple in the scriptures about the right thing to do, they’re not the issue so much as it is knowing what is the particular will of God in our lives. The storyline is with Abraham. And the first thing you need to know about Abraham of course is that he had a child that is under discussion who has come of age and is marriageable. And he had that child when he, Abraham, was very old. And so how old is he now if the boy is marriageable age? He’s quite an older man. And he’s not in a position to go about much

[00:02:39] as used to be the customer of the day to search down himself. But he needs help. So the story line includes about the fact of how he enlists his most trusted servant to go on his behalf but the trusted servant then illustrates how to get God to guide you. So that’s what we are seeing here. Those first verses are telling the story of how Abraham called in that special servant of his and when he was well advanced in years and the Lord have blessed him on many things he could settle back and say, I’ll just keep on doing that. But no, he wants there to be a leadership exercise and so he wants it to happen through the servant. Now you may not understand the practice they had back then, he says, put your hand under my thigh and

[00:03:33] now the reason for that is that Abraham is so old that he is not able quite to discern whether the first, everybody around him, saying yes, yes, yes, but they are not going to do but by their practice of putting your hand under the thigh of the person who’s making a crest that’s a position where you can feel the flow of blood and you can get an idea of whether they are really in meaning to be saying yes, yes, yes and it’s also a practice that enables some sense of oneness between the two so that the man will promise to do do what the old men asked what. Put your hand under my thigh that I may make you swear from the Lord.’ So it connects with our spiritual promise before the Lord, the God of heaven and God of earth.

[00:04:24] That you won’t take a wife or my son from the daughters of the Canaanites. The Canaanites were those who were the opposite of the Israelites. The Israelites were coming into being through Abraham. Canaanites are the people of the land who are not very cognisant of worshipping God properly, but are the people amongst whom they dwell. The concern of Abraham is that they won’t have in the story of his lineage a reversion just to take on board the customs of the land. He is wanting their servant to promise that he won’t follow those customs. But I’ll go to my country and to my kindred, and take her wife for my son Isaac. So the servant said to him, perhaps the woman may not be willing to come. Follow me to the land, must I then take your son back to the land from which you came.

[00:05:21] That’s to retrace the steps back from where Abraham was first called. And Abraham doesn’t want the next generation to go backwards and failed to be able to live out the legacy of God’s hand being upon Abraham Sarah, but wants them to be able to follow in that which He had done and to continue, in the path of letting God lead. So, see, that you do not do that. The Lord God of Heaven who took me from my Father’s house and from the land of my kindred, and He spoke to me, and swore to me, to your offspring, I will give this land, the land talked about back then. He will send his angel before you and you shall take a wife for my son from there. But if the woman is not willing to follow you then you will be free from this

[00:06:09] oath of mind.” So it’s a real promise, a solemn thing of giving an oath but Abraham’s wording in to it. The fact that if he does all of the best things as a servant then it won’t be his fault if in the long run the woman won’t come. only you must not take my son back there.” So the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham, his master, and his four, to him concerning the manor. Now, that’s the start of it. So we’re going to follow what happens then in the life of the servant and his progress in journeying to seek to be obedient to this task. The servant is the one that’s going to go and in the next set of verses, verses 10-21

[00:06:52] So servant took ten of his masters chamomiles and departed, taking all sorts of choice gifts from his master, and he rose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. And he made their chamomiles kneel down outside the city by the well of the water at the time of the evening, was a time when the women go out to draw water. Immediately as we notice the storyline continues, what the servant does is not a stupid thing. This is not a case of finding the will of God and just sort of expecting it to be delivered to you with no effort on your part to do something that’s the reasonable way to do it, and to bring the camels in and be there where the young women would be the ones coming out to water is what the man is doing.” He said, O Lord, verse 12, God, of my Master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my Master Abraham. Behold, I’m standing

[00:07:59] here, by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let the young woman to whom I shall say, please let down your jar that I may drink.” And she will say, drink and I’ll water your camels also so that’s the test. Now, I don’t know if any one of you has done anything to find the will of God but you have given a bit of a test. And you said Lord, if this really is Your purpose, let it be, I get a letter or whatever like so that proves that you’ve answered my prayer. It’s a bit of a dicey thing to do. I don’t know that God has to answer prayers like that. Sometimes He does.

[00:08:43] and I knew that happening when I was feeling led to ask Michelle to marry me and believed I had been led to that spot to meet her. Not that very spot, but led to be in the crusade I was doing at her home church for this purpose. But I wasn’t 100% certain and there were some elements to the storyline that was going to make it difficult for me particularly our age difference. Now, a couple of things happened. Number one, Prince Charles and Lady Diana got engaged,

[00:09:19] and they were both respectively one year older than me and Michelle. And so it did me a power of good because everybody commented on how they were a lovely couple. The second thing was, my parents came through Sydney, where we were, and they understood intuitively that something was going on and myISU mother said to me when I dropped her back to her sister’s house after them being with us for a night at my host house. And she said, Jim, if you’re planning

[00:09:53] to get engaged, you’ll need, and I think the figure was $243 or something more, how she picked on that, I think it was what she paid before World War One for an engagement ring. And she assumed the same amount of money would be needed, and I didn’t have any money. they weren’t paying me anything in the church. They didn’t give me a place to board and was being fed and kept, but I didn’t have any money and I’ve been flying around the world on the power on my bank card.”

[00:10:23] Anyway, so I said to the Lord, if this really is the will of God, you need to give me tomorrow $243. I got the next day coming in the mail of the house where I stayed and nobody was writing to me. I hadn’t given out that address, but two letters came that were addressed to me from different people with checks inside that added up to the exact amount. So in that answered, and he is in the business sometimes of answering our requests that put him on the spot to do something to prove it. And that’s actually what this man is doing. There are many cases, Christians report, of trying to get God to do the same thing, but he doesn’t always have to jump at your request. He can out of grace do so, and in the case of Abraham he did.

[00:11:23] So, the young woman came out and the one that came is Rebecca and she begins watering all the camels. Remember he came off a whole train of camels and they drank a lot of water, so it wasn’t a little thing that he’d asked. He didn’t say, give me a cup of water, and I know you’re the one. He asked this person if she’d water all the camels? That’s an awful lot of letting the well down and bringing it up and tipping it into the place, the trough.’ He’d ask that, and then she said, Let me give you some too. So she said, I will draw water for your camels also until they’re finished drinking. She quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran into the world to draw water. She drew

[00:12:11] for all the camels, and the man gazed at her. He gazed at her until she finished drinking. And she said, I’ll draw water for your camels also until they finish drinking. So she quickly emptied the jar. I just read that bit. A man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the Lord had prospered his journey or not. Now the element in the story line that this is illustrative of is that when you are seeking the Will of God, don’t just give a test in whichever way

[00:12:41] it runs, you are to say that’s it. You’re not hemming God in that he has to. he may choose not to cooperate with your tests. And there are many things we do in life, as Christians, where we seek to find the will of God if we’re doing this method of praying for God to do a specific thing where he may not choose to answer you at the time. There are some things in life which he keeps silent. The silence of God is something that’s

[00:13:06] rather difficult for Christians to handle. But he can’t be one who’s bossed around by our telling how it should be done. can choose to answer if He wants to. In this particular case He did, and she fulfilled all the tests. He was watching to learn weather, and if you really want to find the will of God, and you’re seeking it, a part of what you have to do is to take the stance that you’ll watch to see whether the Lord will prosper your journey or whatever it is that you’ve got the issue of. Sometimes he won’t. You don’t blame God for that. You just say, well he didn’t decide to answer my request the way I asked it. I’ll go on waiting on him. That term, waiting on the Lord, is through the Scriptures again and again and again.

[00:13:59] They that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength, the one where they rise up up on wings like eagles, etc. His premise by learning how to wait on God. Waiting on God is where you believe in him, you want him to act, but sometimes he won’t act. You just have to say, Lord this is what I want to happen, I might have got it wrong. But I’m waiting on you to take up your leadership and do something. In this particular case God answered. We’ll go to the next set of verses in the chapter. We’re seeing illustrated here spiritual principles about how to know the will of God and the importance of letting God show that he’s prepared to be put to the test, as it were. You’re not meant to put God to the test, but he’s prepared to step into the way you set it up. He wants you to be willing always to follow his way of how he sets it up, but sometimes he does

[00:15:11] answer prayer, and that’s a part of what we’ve noticed happening, is that the servant of Abraham has based all of this by prayer. Don’t always go seeking the will of God, and forgetting that one of the steps that’s necessary to find his will is to give yourself to be a person sufficiently in prayer that he can change your mind, he can change your direction of thinking. If we simply get a fixed thing in our head and determine that’s what we’re going to do, you’re sort of ruling God out a bit. If you always do things prayerfully saying Lord what is your purpose, I’m asking you to show it, then you’re ruling yourself into his leadership and his ideas. So the young woman ran and told her mother’s household about these things. I bet you did, if you’ve ever watched young women and their mothers – when there’s something to do with romance happening

[00:16:08] there’s lots of talkie-talkies that go on. And Rebecca had a brother whose name was Laban. Laban ran out toward the man to the Spring and then Jeremiah spoke to Rebecca, his sister and heard the words of Rebecca, his sister. 3 Thus the man spoke to me and said, and he went to the man and behold he was standing by the camels at the Spring, and he said, Come in, go to his house, I take it. And he blessed the Lord and said, Why do you stand outside, why don’t you let the autistic of relatives why do you not allow hospitality to happen and come into our house?” For I’ve prepared the house and the place for the camels.”

[00:16:54] So he’s joining in the provision that the girl has started to do with the watering of the camels. So the man came to the house, and unharnessed the camels, and gave straw and fodder to the camels, and there was water to wash his feet. And the feet of the men who were with him, he had service with him, and food was set before him to eat. But he said, I will not eat. This is a servant of Abraham, until I have said,

[00:17:18] well, I have to say, he’s not going to let the hospitality take away the prime moment of opportunity to put his case. And they say, speak on. So on the next little bit, so he said, I’m Abraham’s servant. The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he’s become great. And he’s given him flocks and herds and silver and gold, male servants and female servants, cats and donkeys.

[00:17:41] Now what he’s actually doing here is a very good step if you’ve travelled distance and arrived to certain people’s house and you want to take away from them something very precious. It’s their prized daughter. You’re a bit of an idiot if you just go there completely unprepared if you go along and fail to present yourself as worthy and you’re talking about your household

[00:18:06] that you’re going to have this girl go into as one stricken with poverty. No, he’s presenting a good picture of what it would be for her to come, and be a part of the House of Abraham. So the fact that you’re trusting in God to do something doesn’t mean that you won’t do the best you can in those areas of life that are possible for you. Many a time, because a number of years I’ve been involved in youth ministry. I sometimes get young men who ask me, what can I do because I’m wanting to win the hand of this girl or that. And sometimes they haven’t done some very natural things. Like work hard to get through their course so that they’ve got a living. Sometimes they expect that God will

[00:18:52] step in and arrange something for them when they’ve been lazy. Now there are certain natural things that, when it comes to romances, which the families of both sides have all got their antenna up to see that they don’t want to see their loved one, go and join a family that’s in total failure all around. They want to see that there is some sign that they have him being growth and provision. That’s an example here of what’s going on, is that they hear that the house of Abraham is one that God has blessed. And so he rehearses this story, I won’t go through all of it, we’ll move onto the next

[00:19:34] set of verses please. And the servants brought out the jewellery, the silver and the gold and garments and gave them to Rebecca. So all of those special gifts that he was giving to Rebecca, that’s the girl, are testifying to the intent, the good intent and the purpose, of the house of Abraham. They are not calling her to step into a defeat situation, but to one where God has been blessing. In verse 55, her brother and her mother said, Let the young woman remain with us a little while, they don’t want to lose her straight away, at least 10 days, and after that she may go. He said to them, Don’t delay me since the Lord has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master.’

[00:20:24] And they said, let us call the young woman and ask her. We won’t send her off weeping. They called Rebecca and said to her, will you go with this man? And immediately I noticed that in the age old debate that goes on about God’s will, How much of it is God’s will, how much of it is something that’s our will? Then again, we notice, it’s both. And so they’ve struck an interesting question. We’ll ask her to come. Are you willing to go with this man? And she said, I will go.

[00:20:59] And there’s a certain element in finding the will of God which involves our willingness to follow. It might be a difficult thing you ask, but God doesn’t have enforced servants that get forced to have to do it. Sometimes it may look that way to others looking on, but He does want us to come to the place where we say, we say I’m willing to go. So they sent away Rebekah and their sister and their nurse. and Abraham’s servant and his men, and they bless Rebecca and said to her that she was to go. The rest of the story line – I won’t read it anymore, but they arrive eventually back

[00:21:46] to where Isaac is. He sees them coming in a distance and he runs out to meet them, and he takes her and she becomes his wife. The storyline has continued with the blessing of that family because there was a guidance where they asked of God and he answered. Now God doesn’t always require us to have everything we do. You can take it too far. I can remember in the days where sometimes I drove my car and sometimes I rode my bicycle, and at that turning point of being sixteen in Adelaide and stopping the bicycle at the way home and saying,

[00:22:27] I want to go right home in the way you want me to. Which fork of the road shall I take? And I was praying over, this one, this one, and that’s being stupid. God doesn’t want us to pray for His will every little thing like so, if there were some great circumstance about that, maybe you do pray but you go about your life and expects that God will be involved in it, and He is able to step in. But on really big matters where you’ve been prayerful, and want the Will of the Lord, then it’s a good thing to soak it in prayer, and don’t do everything just because you think it’s a good idea. But do it prayer-laden and soaked in prayer, that you may find the Will of the Lord that way.

[00:23:12] Well, that’s the storyline of this beautiful chapter in the Old Testament of God guiding this young man and the servant who went on his behalf to find Rebecca for Isaac, let’s Let’s have a little prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this passage. I am glad of it as being such a wonderful passage, one of my favorite passages. And I thank you Father for the times where I’ve been glad of the actual illustration of how it went, and especially the saying that the servant had rehearsed later on.

[00:23:50] He said about how God got dead. He said, I, being in the way the Lord led me. And that’s the last little point, Father of Lord, that sometimes we don’t get your guidance because we never get in the way. But there is some experimental moment when we have to step out and ask you to bless and to guide us and to get in the way of being guided, and trust you that you will come to the party. And so do. Thank you for this beautiful illustration in chapter 24 of Genesis, in Jesus’ name, Amen.