Sister Timberly Sunday Evening 4/28/13

Sister Timberly Sunday Evening 4/28/13

1Sa 1:1  Now there was a certain man of Ramathaimzophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite:

1Sa 1:2  And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.

This history of Samuel begins before his birth.  The same for John the Baptist, Jesus, Jeremiah…  Some were the result of promise but Samuel was a child of prayer.  He was asked of God by his mother. 

For the children, God has a plan for each of your lives.  He has a plan for you to do something with your life if you will present your life to him. 

Samuel was given back to God by his mother.  Let us as parents give our children back to God because He may have a bigger plan than we can conceive.  We need to hold them in open hands rather than closed.  We need God’s direction that we will have His inspiration as we try to prune and mold our children. 

Some children don’t have godly parents.  Some children give themselves back to God.  Always it comes down to a choice.  If Samuel had refused to be given back to God then God could not have used him as He did.

Children you are not too young to serve God.  I appreciate my mother she helped me to, as I sought God when I was very young, get to God and get settled.  If you choose what is right then God will give you a really good life.

Elkanah was described as a disciple of the prophets.  In his day there was no vision.  It was a dark day there had not been a prophet since Moses.  He was still a disciple of the prophets.  Elkanah served God in a difficult time and we can too.  We just need to serve God according to the pattern.

Hophni, Phinehas and Eli were within the temple at Shiloh.  Everyone knew what Hophni and Phinehas were all about. They were bad guys. 

We can be thankful for a good pastor and the truth and that we are not in Babylon where there is sin in the ministry.  We can be thankful for a good pastor.

Elkanah had a divided family he had more than one wife.  This was contrary to the original plan of God, one man one woman.  Hannah was sad because of this.  She had no children and her rival sinfully provoked her every day, especially when it was time to go worship.  She lorded it over Hannah and it was wrong for her. 

Hannah was wrong in letting it get her down so much.  Hannah didn’t have to let it get her down so much.  We can either choose to go down the road to self pity or choose the high road and find something good to think about.  It took Hannah a while but she found the high road.

Elkanah gave her a double portion.  He was trying to defend the weak one that was down trodden.  You cannot worship under self pity you must get the victory.  “Those of a fretful spirit,” Matthew Henry wrote, “are their own enemy.”

We deserve our crosses but what about our comforts?  We need to look at both sides or we are unjust to God and unkind to ourselves.

Hannah was able to put herself aside finally and was comforted and ate and drank.

1Sa 1:10  And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore.

This is a safe place to go cry out your troubles.  This is showing good use of affliction.  When you are afflicted then pray for your prayer has power.  When you are feeling grieved before God, then remember you have power with God.  “Blessed are they that morn.”

The prayer came right from her heart just as the tears came right from her eyes.  She was particular in her prayer for a child.  She wanted a son to give back to God‘s service.  This is the only way to really have something and that is to give it back. 

It was a silent secret prayer made in a holy place.  She fell under hard censure for it.  She was accused of being drunk.  It is a product of an evil day when innocence is esteemed evil.  She defended herself without anger and didn’t return censure for censure.  She just vindicated herself.

1Sa 1:16  Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto.

She even called him, “My lord.”  She spoke with great respect even though it was known that he was covering up sin in his family.  He made atonement for his censure by a kindly fatherly advice.

1Sa 1:17  Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him.

1Sa 1:18  And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.

Why the sudden happy change?  She had by prayer committed her case to God and left it with him and was no more perplexed about it.  Prayer is the hearts ease. 

Php 4:6  Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

Php 4:7  And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

We can let things be known to God and we can let the peace come in.  I’ve found this many times and God is so good to let the peace come in.

1Sa 1:19  And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the LORD, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the LORD remembered her.

God granted Hannah’s desire.

1Sa 1:20  Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the LORD.

Matthew Henry spoke of how beautiful it was how Hannah took care of Samuel.  She didn’t give him to a nurse neither would she leave him for any reason.  Matthew Henry said that we should do the same when we raise our children.  Don’t let the world or your relatives raise them they are your children and we are responsible before God. 

Some commentators think that Samuel was only about three or four when she decided that he was old enough to be given back to God. 

She had made a promise and imagine the pain.  It was well known that worship had decayed at Shiloh.  Here she was giving her little boy to this place where there wasn’t even true worship.  Since God had given her this child she had faith that He would keep him.

Are we encouraging our children and grandchildren to align themselves with the ways of God or are we bending our ways to match their ways?

1Sa 1:26  And she said, Oh my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the LORD.

1Sa 1:27  For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of him:

“The Lord has given me my petition.”  He was obtained by prayer and was resigned by prayer to God.

Hannah told Eli, “I am a living testimony of God’s answered prayer.”

1Sa 1:28  Therefore also I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the LORD. And he worshipped the LORD there.

Samuel did his part to worship the Lord beyond what could have been expected of a child his age. 

Brother Gary Kelly Sunday Morning 4/28/13

Brother Gary Kelly Sunday Morning 4/28/13

It is part of God to be faithful.  That is how God is.  The reality is that God didn’t inherit anything; He is self existing and He is faithful.  He was faithful to the Children of Israel by making a way for Moses to escape when the children were being killed.  He made a way for them to escape from Egypt and cross the red sea.

When they ran out of water, the children of Israel began to murmur.  “Why did you do bring us out here to die?”  Moses knew what to do. 

When you are in difficulty or you know someone that is in difficulty, Moses taught us what to do.  He cried to God.  Keep it real, keep up-to-date, and keep it part of our worship and life to cry to God when difficulty comes.

God said to go forward.  There is a wonderful thing about God when we find our self in difficulty, oppressed with difficult circumstances all around us, when we wonder where the water is, God will be faithful. 

God can do whatever needs to be done at this very moment for each of our lives and situations.  He told Moses to go to the rock in Horeb, smite the rock, and He would provide the water.

Near where Mount Horeb was there was a wild tribe of people that wandered.  They decided that they wanted the water that God provided for the Children of Israel.  They began to war with them.  God told Moses to send Joshua and the men to battle with the Amalek and the Amalekites. 

Moses took two of the brethren with him.  We need each other.  He took Aaron and Hur and went to the top of the mountain. 

There will be times when we ask others to pray for us and if God gives you a scripture for me then hold up my hands and help me in this situation.

Exo 17:11  And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.

Exo 17:12  But Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

I think of some of the burdens that I have carried and I think of some of the burdens that you have carried.  I envision in my mind’s eye the servant of God with his hands up, “God we really need help from you and only you can intervene in this situation.  Only you can send help from above.” 

Joshua and the men were down there fighting against a very wild tribe of the Amalekites.  The dear man of God got tired.  As he got tired his hands began to get weary and to lower.  As he looked down he saw Joshua and the men with him were being overcome by the Amalekites.  That dear man of God said, “We have to win this battle” and he lift up his hands and his heart to God.  “God we have to have help from you, please come to our rescue.” 

As he cried out then he saw Joshua begin to push the Amalekites back further and further.  Then he would get tired and his arms would begin to shake and come down.  He’d look down and he would see God’s people losing ground. 

Aaron and Hur came along and set that dear man of God on a rock and said, “Let us hold up your hands.”

Aaron and Hur found a place for the weary one to rest.  The rock typifies Christ Jesus.  You can rest on Him this morning. 

The dear man of God sat on the stone and could still see the battle and the battle still raged.  Aaron and Hur lift up the arms of the dear man of God and held them there.  As Moses’ hands were up they could see Joshua and the men with him defeating, discomfiting, the Amalekites.

Exo 17:12  But Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

Exo 17:13  And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

Exo 17:14  And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.

Exo 17:15  And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovahnissi:

Exo 17:16  For he said, Because the LORD hath sworn that the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.

Jehovahnissi means, ‘God is my banner’.

They set Moses upon a rock.  As he sat upon that rock, Aaron and Hur supported his hands.  God gave Joshua and Moses a victory and in the process of time the Amalekites were destroyed. 

Moses built an altar and worshipped God.  After God gives us a victory we need to worship God and thank Him for it.  This is two things, it is a memorial and it shows you realize that God is your victory.  Moses did this and said, “God is my banner.”

The unseen thing in this message is that as Moses held up his hands there was a banner that God himself displayed.  That is the banner that God is the true God of Israel. 

We will not win our battles through any avenues of the flesh.  Only through the True God being our God will we win.

Moses knew God.  However young or old you are, you can know God.  It may have been two or three weeks ago that I preached on the thought of, “How big is a baby’s heart.”  Our heart is about the same size as our fist.  This eternal God that Moses knew is able to be the God of the smallest heart.

Moses knew God from the time of being an infant.  His mom and dad taught him about the true God.  Children, young people, and adults will be offered many things that would crowd God out of their heart.  Moses made a choice to know God. 

We will all have to make a definite choice either for God or against God.

When you refer to God as a God of judgment many get uncomfortable.  We are blessed to serve a God of judgment that has principalities and standards that say, “This is right and this is the way.”  If He were not then He wouldn’t care.  We serve a God that does care.

Moses faced difficulty in carrying out God’s commands.  Moses had a lot of difficulties.  Some of it was self induced as when he found himself taking care of sheep after killing the Egyptian.  All of his difficulties were used of God. 

When you find yourself making choices that place you where it is difficult for you to do what God wants you to do, the issue is that God will come where you are. 

He is a God that specialized in taking difficult situations and saying to his servant, “This is what I want you to do next.”  We often want to see the end before taking the next step.  God shows us one step at a time.

You may have felt a wakeup call spiritually.  Don’t beat yourself up over that.  We all need wakeup calls. 

Brother Barry on the thought of the Holy Spirit wrote that when individuals are doing their best to serve God and feel that God led them and then something doesn’t work out, the enemy moves in like a flood to make them think that it is hopeless and to give up. 

When things don’t go right one thing that you can understand is that God is a just God and whatever is transpiring in the big scene that God has we can rest assured that God is working out his purpose.

They began to murmur and complain…, Moses was in a tough spot.  When the enemy moves in like a flood, when you are warred against from getting to the water of life, God told Moses to go forward. 

There will be times when you must walk by faith and go forth to the water of life.  When we face difficulty it is vital that we get to Mt. Zion. 

Lifting up your hands, God left this testimony of Moses for us.  When you reach a place when you realize that there is not one thing that you can do, that is one of the most difficult and wonderful places to be in.  “God there is not one thing that I can do but lift my hands and my heart to you.  I need the saints and the Word and the Spirit to support me.” 

It takes more than just our brother’s and sister’s support.  We need a promise of God and the Word of God under our arm.  God will be God until time ends.  That same God was God before time and before day one. 

Day one God spoke.  Before day one God was God just like He was God when he told Moses to go a little further and go to the rock.  When he smote the rock an artesian well sprung forth.  The children of Israel had water to drink; they enjoyed water for their needs. 

As they did Amalek was wandering around.  Maybe he could smell water or could hear it.  Maybe it shot into the air like Old Faithful or further.  The tribe that didn’t serve God and wanted what God had provided for the Children of Israel moved in.  God had a plan. 

When your arms grow weak then it is not wrong to ask for help.  Lift up the hands that hang down and confirm the feeble knees.  There are times and not just for those that are aged when we need each other.  Moses was humble before God and recognized that he wanted a victory but it would take the help of the saints and the help of God for him to win that victory. 

If you will get upon Mt Zion with your hands lifted up and the word and the Spirit supporting them and the saints there encouraging you that God has never failed then you can have the victory.  I think of Sister Darla when her husband died and she was left to raise five children.  God never failed her from that day to this.  Sis Dorothy was a widow and her house even burned down and God made a way.  He is God.

Come to Zion and lift up your hands.  Let them be supported by the Word and the Spirit and find an Aaron and a Hur to support your hands.  There is a banner that is lift up and it says, “God is my banner.” 

Some trust in chariots and horses.  Some trust in big shots and little shots.  Lift up your banner in unwavering faith.  “God is my banner.” 

To those that are serving God, everyday unbelief comes to war.  Does God really answer prayer?  Lift up that banner, “God is my banner.”

I thought of that mother whose son was so wounded during a war and came home with a head injury.  They said that he would never live and the mother, said, “He has got to live, he is not saved.  He must live so that he can know God.” 

Lift up that banner, “I cannot see that soul lost forever and the tribe of sin taking that soul out to be wasted and spent on the treasures of sin.”

Deu 33:26  There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky.

Deu 33:27  The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.

That dear man of God, Moses, lifted up his hands.  There is a God that rides upon the heavens.  This is what this scripture says.  Psalms 46 is a prophecy of Christ and speaks of Jesus in the skies.  Here David is talking of the God that rides in the excellency of the skies. 

I’ve been praying for dear brother Maxwell.  God who rides in excellency and purity, the white horse rider in the sky, has never lost a battle. 

Moses had a vision of this eternal God that rides in the sky and has excellence.  I wonder if this was in memory of the day when He reached his hands to heaven to the God of heaven.  When his hands got tired and others said, “Sit on this rock, we will help you.  We don’t want to disqualify you, we will support you.  This battle is real.  We came out of Egypt and we want to make it clear to Canaan.”

There is something about God moving that is always excellent.

God is God.  The very word good comes from God.  God’s goodness is concerned about all of our personal welfare.  This doesn’t just mean food, shelter, clothing, and heat.  It means our thoughts.  It means the intricate work of God on our mind, our heart, our spirit. 

If you weren’t faced with a situation that demanded God’s intervention on your attitude last week, then you will be this week.  We have an eternal God that is full of goodness and is concerned about our spiritual life.  He is concerned about you knowing God as a child, as a young person, and as an adult.

God was before time, he was before day one.  God is God in 2013, and when time has come to an end, God will still be God. 

God is immutable and cannot lie.  God is just.  God is holy.  God has all power.  He is omnipotent, if you don’t believe it then look out your window.  Everywhere about us we see evidence of God.  That He is immutable, has all power, and is everywhere present. 

If you haven’t seen a tulip, go look at one and let it preach to you.  If you haven’t seen a baby colt, lamb or calf, then check them out.  God is God.  He has all knowledge.

Children as you grow and as I age, God knows what is good for you to know.  God has put a compass in you.  God built you with a compass.  The man that built the compass was given that knowledge through God. 

God gave each of you children a compass.  It knows when something is good and it witnesses when that is good.  It witnesses when something is evil and it goes wild when it comes in contact with it and says, don’t touch that and get away fast. 

God gave you young people a compass.  There will be those that will try to influence you away from Him.  But God gave you a compass.  God knows those that are His.

Mic 6:6  Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?

Mic 6:7  Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

If we had all the oil that is under the state of Montana, that would not be enough to pay for our sin.

Mic 6:8  He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Do right by those that are saved and those that are not saved.  Love mercy and walk humbly with God. 

When the battle is raging, may God challenge us to lift up our hands and we know that we have a banner up there that says, “God is going to win this battle.”

Sister Alice Sunday School 4/28/13

Sister Alice Sunday School 4/28/13

A mission that is larger than our life:

Heb 10:24  And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:

Heb 10:25  Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

Col 4:8  Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate, and comfort your hearts;

Col 4:9  With Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They shall make known unto you all things which are done here.

We can go from being unprofitable to being a faithful and beloved brother. 

The Lord told Moses, when the people complained, to quit fussing and tell the people to go forward.  We should do the same, go forward.

Gideon said, “Do as I do.”  Are we living so that we can say this?

Jonathan said it is nothing for God to answer with a few or many.  We are just a servant, God is the one that does the work and sends the victory; He carries the boat and brings us through.

David said, when Goliath disesteemed him, “I come to you in the name of the Lord.”

Nehemiah was working on a great work and he said “I cannot come down.” 

We need rest.  Our minds and bodies need rest.  We cannot just keep going and going or we will wear out our resources.

Esther said, “If I perish I perish.”  Mordecai told her, “This is why God put you here.  There is no way that you can sidestep it if you do then God will come through with a victory but you will be lost.”  God has 7,000 that have never bowed their knee to Bail, but we will end up on the scrub pile if we don’t follow His plan for us.

Our pastor when he was too sick to get out of the chair kept coming and preaching to us because he had a mission that he valued more than life.

Sister Faith Stewart and Amy Carmichael valued their missions more than their lives.  When one’s father was sick to death she went before God and God showed her the dear faces there that she was ministering to and asked her if she wanted to lose all this.  She said, “No.”  She faithfully wrote her father and encouraged him that way.  She had a mission larger than her life.

What would God have you to do and what is your mission?

Gen 24:1  And Abraham was old, and well stricken in age: and the LORD had blessed Abraham in all things.

If we are serving God with all our heart He will be sure to bless us.

Gen 24:2  And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh:

Us that are beginning to be elderly we must not allow that to hinder us.  This was Abraham’s eldest servant.

Gen 24:3  And I will make thee swear by the LORD, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell:

The Canaanites were wicked beyond belief.  They did many horrible things in the name of religion.  He wanted his servant to swear to him that he would not take a wife from the Canaanites for his son Isaac.

Gen 24:4  But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac.

Gen 24:5  And the servant said unto him, Peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land: must I needs bring thy son again unto the land from whence thou camest?

Gen 24:6  And Abraham said unto him, Beware thou that thou bring not my son thither again.

Abraham’s mission was to leave that land and he didn’t want his mission blotted in any way.  “Beware that you don’t take my son back there.”

Gen 24:7  The LORD God of heaven, which took me from my father's house, and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that sware unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land; he shall send his angel before thee, and thou shalt take a wife unto my son from thence.

The servant was swearing with his life. 

Gen 24:8  And if the woman will not be willing to follow thee, then thou shalt be clear from this my oath: only bring not my son thither again.

Gen 24:9  And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware to him concerning that matter.

Gen 24:10  And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed; for all the goods of his master were in his hand: and he arose, and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor.

Remember this servant is old.  Mesopotamia was at least 500 miles from Canaan.  This is a huge undertaking for a servant that is elderly.  He was going to get this job done and didn’t allow anything to distract him.  He took camels, provisions, gifts, and a few men. 

These camels could cover 25 miles a day and so there was probably at least a month travel going and a month travel coming back.  Abraham and Isaac waited. 

We don’t know how many trials, tribulations, or setbacks that there were on the way.  The servant had it settled to go straight forward no matter how long it took.

Gen 24:11  And he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water.

Gen 24:12  And he said, O LORD God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham.

I wonder if along the way he felt the angel that Abraham said would go with him.  Here we see he is acknowledging the God of Abraham.

Gen 24:13  Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water:

Gen 24:14  And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master.

We see that he felt that there was one appointed to be Isaac’s wife.  Do we feel that when we pray that there is one appointed for us to be a witness to?

Gen 24:15  And it came to pass, before he had done speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder.

This would be maybe Abraham’s great niece.  Bethuel had already probably died, so Rebecca’s brother and mother were helping here.

Gen 24:16  And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up.

Gen 24:17  And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher.

This older gentleman wouldn’t let anything hinder and ran to meet her.  It may have startled her a little bit.  Here was this older gentleman running.

Gen 24:18  And she said, Drink, my lord: and she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink.

Gen 24:19  And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking.

Gen 24:20  And she hasted, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels.

Even on a one day’s march a camel will drink five gallons of water.  Here we see she had to draw fifty gallons.  This speaks well of her.  She didn’t say, “I have the pitcher here and your men could use it.”  She drew it herself.

Gen 24:21  And the man wondering at her held his peace, to wit whether the LORD had made his journey prosperous or not.

Gen 24:22  And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold;

This took a while and it may be he was no longer astonished at her and what she had done so was able to speak.

Gen 24:23  And said, Whose daughter art thou? tell me, I pray thee: is there room in thy father's house for us to lodge in?

Gen 24:24  And she said unto him, I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor.

Gen 24:25  She said moreover unto him, We have both straw and provender enough, and room to lodge in.

Gen 24:26  And the man bowed down his head, and worshipped the LORD.

Can you see him here; he is absolutely full of worship.

Gen 24:27  And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being in the way, the LORD led me to the house of my master's brethren.

It was designed of God, by God, and for God.

She left the fellow out there and ran straight home.

Gen 24:28  And the damsel ran, and told them of her mother's house these things.

Gen 24:29  And Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban: and Laban ran out unto the man, unto the well.

Gen 24:30  And it came to pass, when he saw the earring and bracelets upon his sister's hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, Thus spake the man unto me; that he came unto the man; and, behold, he stood by the camels at the well.

Gen 24:31  And he said, Come in, thou blessed of the LORD; wherefore standest thou without? for I have prepared the house, and room for the camels.

Gen 24:32  And the man came into the house: and he ungirded his camels, and gave straw and provender for the camels, and water to wash his feet, and the men's feet that were with him.

You can see that this is a good man he took care of his camels first, and we can see that there were men with him.  He said, “I will not eat until I have told my errand”.  He had been on the road for a month.

Gen 24:34  And he said, I am Abraham's servant.

Gen 24:35  And the LORD hath blessed my master greatly; and he is become great: and he hath given him flocks, and herds, and silver, and gold, and menservants, and maidservants, and camels, and asses.

Gen 24:36  And Sarah my master's wife bare a son to my master when she was old: and unto him hath he given all that he hath.

Gen 24:37  And my master made me swear, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife to my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I dwell:

Gen 24:38  But thou shalt go unto my father's house, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son.

Gen 24:39  And I said unto my master, Peradventure the woman will not follow me.

Gen 24:40  And he said unto me, The LORD, before whom I walk, will send his angel with thee, and prosper thy way; and thou shalt take a wife for my son of my kindred, and of my father's house:

He told them the whole story and even that the angel would lead him.  He had taken note of that.

Gen 24:41  Then shalt thou be clear from this my oath, when thou comest to my kindred; and if they give not thee one, thou shalt be clear from my oath.

Gen 24:42  And I came this day unto the well, and said, O LORD God of my master Abraham, if now thou do prosper my way which I go:

Gen 24:43  Behold, I stand by the well of water; and it shall come to pass, that when the virgin cometh forth to draw water, and I say to her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water of thy pitcher to drink;

Gen 24:44  And she say to me, Both drink thou, and I will also draw for thy camels: let the same be the woman whom the LORD hath appointed out for my master's son.

Gen 24:45  And before I had done speaking in mine heart, behold, Rebekah came forth with her pitcher on her shoulder; and she went down unto the well, and drew water: and I said unto her, Let me drink, I pray thee.

Gen 24:46  And she made haste, and let down her pitcher from her shoulder, and said, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: so I drank, and she made the camels drink also.

Gen 24:47  And I asked her, and said, Whose daughter art thou? And she said, The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor's son, whom Milcah bare unto him: and I put the earring upon her face, and the bracelets upon her hands.

Gen 24:48  And I bowed down my head, and worshipped the LORD, and blessed the LORD God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son.

Gen 24:49  And now if ye will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me: and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand, or to the left.

Gen 24:50  Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, The thing proceedeth from the LORD: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good.

When we are lead by God others will see that the thing proceeds from the Lord.

Gen 24:51  Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master's son's wife, as the LORD hath spoken.

Gen 24:52  And it came to pass, that, when Abraham's servant heard their words, he worshipped the LORD, bowing himself to the earth.

Gen 24:53  And the servant brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah: he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things.

Gen 24:54  And they did eat and drink, he and the men that were with him, and tarried all night; and they rose up in the morning, and he said, Send me away unto my master.

Gen 24:55  And her brother and her mother said, Let the damsel abide with us a few days, at the least ten; after that she shall go.

Here there was plenty of food, provender for his camels and he is old, he probably needed to sit and rest for a while but he said,

Gen 24:56  And he said unto them, Hinder me not, seeing the LORD hath prospered my way; send me away that I may go to my master.

Gen 24:57  And they said, We will call the damsel, and enquire at her mouth.

Gen 24:58  And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go.

Gen 24:59  And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and his men.

Gen 24:60  And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.

Gen 24:61  And Rebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels, and followed the man: and the servant took Rebekah, and went his way.

Abraham’s servant was not waiting for one distraction.  He was not going to wait one day. 

We must be this way in our mission, not push people to get to God but to urge them. 

The mother and Laban probably wondered what whirlwind had hit them.  Here came this man and there went Rebecca right away. 

We need to be this urgent that we let nothing distract us in our mission.