Day 25: The Servant who searched for the Bride

When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, (…) He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

According to God’s Word, we are his heirs, through our faith in Christ. John 16:13-14 says it is the Holy Spirit who leads us into the land of God's promises, the land of our inheritance. Let us study more fully the part that the Holy Spirit plays in bringing us into our inheritance in Christ.

There is a very vivid and beautiful picture from the Old Testament to illustrate this. It is the story of how Abraham obtained a bride for his son Isaac, found in Genesis 24. Of course, it is a series of historical incidents that actually took place and even in that sense, it is a beautiful story. But it is also a kind of parable acted out in history that reveals to us other spiritual truths that are even more important and which concern us, as believers in Jesus, today.

By this time, Abraham was settled in the land that God had promised him, the land of Canaan. He had received the miracle son, Isaac, who was to be the heir of all that God had promised, and he needed a wife for Isaac, but he did not want to take a wife from the daughters of the Canaanites. That is why he called his senior servant, the main steward of his house, and told him to go back to Mesopotamia, which was the country of Abraham's origin, and to find a bride from Abraham's own clan there.

So, the servant equipped himself with ten camels laden with gifts and good things and set out for Mesopotamia. On the way he prayed that God would direct him to the young woman of God's choice to be the bride for Isaac. When he came to Mesopotamia, he stopped at a well and he specifically prayed that when the right woman came along, he would ask her to give him a drink and she would respond by not merely giving him water, but by drawing water from the well for all his camels. In this way, he would know that she was the woman chosen to be Isaac's bride.

Well, after he had finished praying, Rebekah, who was a member of the same clan as Abraham, came along with her flock. The servant asked her for a drink. She gave him drink and she immediately also of her own initiative proceeded to draw water for his camels. Now that's significant because he had ten camels. They had made a long journey through a desert and it is estimated a thirsty camel can drink about forty gallons of water. So, if she had to draw water for ten camels, she was an active, vigorous woman because she had to draw about four hundred gallons of water with a bucket out of a well! I think that says a lot.

Then the servant brought out the gifts that he was carrying and he gave her some beautiful gifts which she immediately adorned herself with and then she introduced the servant to her family. The family welcomed him and his camels into their home. He presented the destiny that God had for Rebekah and she responded in faith that she would go. He family blessed her and so she set out with the servant and the camels once again to take that long journey back to find the man that she was due to marry. And bear in mind, she had never seen Abraham. She had never seen Isaac. Her only contact with the family into which she was going to marry was through the servant. Likewise, the Holy Spirit also introduces us to God the Father and Jesus Christ, His Son.