COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 64 - WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU WATER A STRANGER'S CAMELS

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

We have seen such a beautiful picture of the early beginnings of God’s family in our study of Abraham and Isaac.  It is through their stories that we really begin to see a clearer and closer picture of the true love a Father can have for His Son.

The relationship that we see between Abraham and Isaac is clearly the relationship that The True Church should desire to share with God The Father.  When we hold a mirror up to Abraham and Isaac we see a shadow of their relationship that is to be our example of how to live out our own lives, knowing the ways of The One True God that their relationship reflects.  We see in them a beautiful, full colored type of that holy relationship between God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.    

In the section of their story where we studied the Akadah, we learned further how Abraham was a type and shadow of God and Isaac was a type and shadow of Yeshua, The Messiah.   In watching Abraham allow Isaac to be a living sacrifice to God we felt along with them some of the anguish that our Father in Heaven must have felt as He gave His only Son on the altar of the cross so that we might have eternal life.  God was willing to do that for us, just as Abraham was willing to give his son for all of mankind.  Abraham truly pondered whether Isaac could be the One promised to take away the sins of the world, but God decided to give His Own Son, Yeshua instead, and God spared the broken heart of Abraham and allowed His own heart to be broken instead.  As good as Isaac was, he was not the prefect sacrifice.  No One could do this but Jesus, Our Messiah.  Through the picture of God leading Abraham through this test, we see what all good fathers do for their sons; they would much rather feel the pain themselves than to see pain inflicted onto their sons.  Abraham was willing to offer up all he loved to God, as God eventually offered to Abraham.  

  God the Father loved this son from earth named Abraham too.  God loved all of Abraham's descendants so much that He was willing to sacrifice the best part of Himself in order to save them.  He also knew because this Son was perfect that He would obtain resurrection and live again.   Just like Isaac, Yeshua displayed that same awesome love of God for the children of the earth; a willingness to suffer pain for redemption out of love, a type of love where One is willing to lay down their life and put themselves aside for the sake of another.

  

Jesus was willing to lay His life down for us, just as Isaac was willing to be bound and slain on an altar.  They both acted out of the purest highest form of love that can exist.   It is the love that brings God and mankind together.  They both, along with their Fathers, understood the noble cause of great love and the necessity of sacrifice and redemption.  Abraham and Isaac acted on what they understood, what God had shown them in their limited humanity; that One would come and become the promised sacrifice to restore mankind to God and repair the rift between the great love of God for His creation.  All their lives they had longed to see this.  All that was done was done with wisdom and understanding and mostly with great love.   This fact of a need to repair the breach between God and man by offering sacrifice and redemption had been passed down through time from Adam and Eve, who learned it directly from God.  This Promised One who would come to be the perfect sacrifice would be the first step to bringing all of creation back to the abundant life man had enjoyed in the Garden of Eden with God.  It all had to happen to restore things, since evil had brought so much sin and death to the world, but God decided to play the sacrificial role instead of allowing men to keep trying to offer imperfect sacrifices that would never be enough to conquer the sins of mankind.  God allowed men grace and took the task unto Himself in love.  

If you ever learn anything at all about God, know that the thing that matters the most to Him is love.  Love is the answer to everything, and love is what He has given to us in all the highest forms that exist.  It was even condensed down to one final commandment; love God and love mankind.  

 

In these great stories of Abraham and Isaac, Father and Son, we are constantly reminded of the fact that there is nothing more wonderful than the love of a Father for a Son; except maybe that of the love of a Man for his Wife.  This is an even higher love.  It is a different kind of love.  It is a love that God wants us to understand.
  

As we follow the searching paths of Eliezer, that wise and faithful servant of Abraham, on his journey to find a wife for Isaac; we will see another great love story unfold.  This story shows the love of a Groom for His Bride.  It is beautiful in every aspect, and Eliezer is clearly a type of God's Holy Spirit doing the work of bringing about God's will, of making love happen in impossible circumstances and unexpected places.  

We do not want to go fast through these stories, but to take our time.  Every detail given is a shinning jewel to behold as a part of a beautiful story-necklace that shadows the love of Yeshua for His Bride; the true church.  

The preparation of the Bride of Christ begins with knowing and understanding this story of Rebekah and Isaac.  The story comes to us appropriately, during a time and season when we are counting the Omer and numbering the days that lead us up to Pentecost.  In these days and in this story God is showing us a picture of the working of The Holy Spirit in our own daily lives by showing us the lives of Isaac and Rebekah.  

It all starts with a servant going into a far country to seek a wife for the Son of his Master.  Is that not how God brings us all to Him?  He sends His servant, The Holy Spirit to draw us unto Him.  

The story takes place in a beautiful time of life for Isaac and Rebekah.  They were old enough to be wise adults, but young enough to enjoy the enticements of true love.  If you belong to God, you too have experienced such a time in your life and may even still be going through that time.  It is a period of courtship.  I am speaking of the time in a Christian’s walk with God that leads to the receiving of The Holy Spirit; the time when they become committed and officially “engaged” to Yeshua.  It is such a love story.  It is a love story very comparable to the story of Rebekah and Isaac.  So let us look deeply into their stories and let God begin to show us ourselves and exactly what He desires from us. 

The Bride for the Promised Son had to come from Abraham’s true family.  God seeks out those who are truly of His family too.  Isaac’s bride could not be one who would rebel against his ways and customs of worship; but one who could be taught by God to forsake the pagan customs of her birth and come into the ways of God that had been shown to Abraham by God, then taught to Isaac by Abraham and Sarah. 

Abraham stressed this one most important point over and over to Eliezer before he left to find Isaac a bride.  God's people cannot be birthed in paganism.  The descendant's of Abraham and Isaac were to be God's people. The perfect bride for the promised son could not and can not have a pagan heart.  She must be able to conform to and keep the ways of God and not the traditions of man and the world.  She must be willing to leave behind the traditions that she once knew in order to follow the traditions of God.  She must be able to set herself apart from those who follow the crowd and are so easily swayed in the wrong directions.  She must learn to follow God and God only.  Her traditions must be God's traditions and her ways must be God's ways.  

Abraham explained to Eliezer again and again that Isaac should never be allowed to leave the promised land where God had promised to bless him; and his bride should not be a pagan idol worshiper, but she should desire to stay close to her husband's side and believe in His God and follow His ways.  She should come from Abraham’s true family tree and be a teachable woman who would be true to the inspirations and ways that Isaac had learned from God.  

Perhaps Abraham was afraid he might die before Eliezer returned; because he was very, very careful to emphasize these things, not once, but many times. 

Eliezer, like all faithful servants, was very determined to stay true to his Master’s wishes.  As soon as possible he quickly prepared to do the task that Abraham had given him.  He had trained many other skillful servants to work with him and under him.  He had trained them well enough to be able to leave them in charge of his tasks whenever he needed to go away on business for the family.  This freed Eliezer to go without worry, to take care of his master’s business whenever it involved long periods of travel.  Oh that our own modern homes and lives today might be in the same order!  We have much to learn from the character traits of Eliezer.  

Some things just could not be trusted to outsiders, and Eliezer was always the one Abraham called upon in these times.  Eliezer was always ready and prepared for whatever Abraham needed whenever he needed it.  He loaded down ten of Abraham’s camels with all sorts of amazing gifts for the future bride of Isaac.  He then set out for Aram Naharaim or as some call it Paddan Aram, the town where Nahor, Abraham's brother lived.

 

When Eliezer arrived in the designated area he went to the town well and had his camels to kneel down.  Those camels must have been very, very tired and very, very thirsty.  They had come a long way to bring so many special gifts to a special bride.  We could tell many stories about the gifts that Abraham's camels carried to Issac's bride; they were indeed very special and abundant, but we must continue with the story at hand.  

It was just before the sunset, the time when the women left their houses to draw water from the town well for the next day, just before the twilight of evening and the changing of one day into another.

Abraham had previously advised Eliezer that an Angel of The LORD would go before him and prepare the way to find Rebekah.  That was all Eliezer knew, it was all he had to go on; otherwise his task seemed humanly impossible. So, as he sat with his camels all loaded down with many fine gifts beside the well; he prayed for that help to come.
 

“God of my master Abraham, make me successful today.  Show kindness to Abraham.  See I am standing beside this spring where the daughters of the town of Nahor are coming to draw water.  May it be that when I say to a young woman, “please let down your jar so that I may have a drink” and she says “Drink and I’ll water your camels too” that she will be the one You have chosen for your servant Isaac.”

And that was exactly how Eliezer knew Rebekah.  It was no sooner than he had finished praying and looked up that he saw a very beautiful young virgin coming toward the well with a jar on her shoulder in order to draw water.  He did not yet know, but she was the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milkah, who was the wife of Nahor; Abraham’s brother! 

Eliezer hurried to her side and asked “Please give me a drink from your jar.”

She gave him a drink, and to Eliezer’s delight she said “I’ll draw water for your camels too until they have had enough to drink.”  

She quietly filled her jar from the well, over and over, and emptied it into the trough for Abraham’s camels to drink.  Now just one camel alone can drink up to 20 gallons of water.  For ten camels to drink, Rebekah would have had to work at least an hour and probably longer.   As she did this Eliezer tried to observe everything about her to be sure that God had brought her to him for Isaac.  

Eliezer cared very little about this girl’s strikingly beautiful appearance; he was trying to discern her character.  Eliezer watched for beauty on the inside as well as beauty on the outside.  The character and beauty on the inside was definitely much more important and took high precedence over any outward appearance.  

It seems that Eliezer might have told his men not to help Rebekah so that he could see a true picture of her character.  There is no specific mention of the men during this time in the scriptures, but one can just visualize them sitting idly by, watching the beautiful Rebekah at work.

Watching her work hard to water his camels, Eliezer realized that Rebekah had a servant’s heart.  This was a very good trait in Eliezer’s opinion, and a very good qualification for the wife of Isaac.  She not only SAID she would water the camels; she moved quickly and went about the work, not waiting for Eliezer to protest her help, or for him to offer for his men to do the work. Rebekah went straight to the task, very willing to do all the work herself.  Rebekah did not even look up or question that  Eliezer's men did not leand a hand.   She did this random act of kindness straight from her heart, willingly, humbly, and as a free gift; even to a stranger.  

Eliezer knew that the gift of hospitality was very important to Abraham and Isaac.  It was the way that opened the door for them to show God's kindness, love and mercy to others.   They had practiced this godly trait throughout the land of Canaan, and Rebekah seemed to have the same natural instinct for making people feel welcomed and blessed.  

Eliezer must have watched her smile and greet the other villagers who came and went as she went about her work. He might have imagined by their attitude toward her that perhaps at one time or another she had done the same for some of these families too.    Eliezer must have seen that she put his comfort above her own, even though she did not even know him.

 

When Rebekah had finished watering his camels; Eliezer took out some very expensive jewelry and held it in his hands as he asked her; “Whose daughter are you? Is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?”  

“Us” meant all of Eliezer's ten camels, Eliezer and the servants that tended to the camel on the journey.  After all,  there had to be one man to lead each camel, and at least one extra man to help Eliezer with loading and unloading and guiding them through the land.  There must have been at least eleven or more men who came with Eliezer to help bring the gifts of Isaac to his future bride.  

Does anything about that particular number sound familiar?  I think Yeshua also had eleven men who helped bring the gifts of God to His people!  Locating and obtaining the right bride for a noble son would involve using many loyal, well-trained and dedicated servants, all of them workmen who would follow closely and work specifically with the faithful and honored head servant of the Master.

Rebekah explained who her father and grandfather were, and she said they had plenty of room for Eliezer, his camels, and his servants to spend the night at their house.  

I have to pause here and ask a question of the reader.  What about your own house?  Do you have room for The Holy Spirit, the servant of God Most High, to come stay in your house?  Perhaps you own no house, perhaps you own nothing but  your own body; but is the body not a Tabernacle for The Holy Spirit of God to dwell in?  Is there room in the house of your soul to receive all the ways that God’s gifts come to you through this faithful servant of God called The Holy Spirit?  

Will you be a gracious receiver as Rebekah was?  When you look in the eyes of a stranger in your own hometown do you ask yourself if they are not a gift from God that may have come to bless your home?  Do you invite them to rest and be refreshed?  Are you open to hospitality like Rebekah was with Eliezer?

I think we all could take a lesson from Rebekah, I know I could.  This beautiful woman with the sincere servant's heart and the gift of hospitality was becoming more and more intriguing to Eliezer.

When Rebekah indicated that her father and grandfather were relatives of Abraham, Eliezer immediately bowed down to the ground and gave praise to God for leading him directly to the house of Abraham’s brother.  Rebekah was standing right beside him as he offered this prayer of thanks, and she was delighted to find that this stranger she had met was the servant of a member of her own family!  She quickly realized this could not be a coincidence.  She could not wait to tell her family this good news; for they would be pleased to know more of the life of Uncle Abraham who lived so far away!  Long distance communications were very hard in those days.  They had not heard from The House of Abraham in a long, long time.  Rebekah filled her jar one last time and went quickly to tell her family this good news.

Eliezer waited beside the spring while Rebekah ran to tell her family about the important visitors that were coming to stay with them.  She told them he was a servant of Abraham, and she showed them the expensive jewelry he had given to her.  She must have explained to them how he had bowed down to God and thanked God for leading him to the house of his master Abraham’s family.  

   

The jewels Eliezer gave to Rebekah were made of silver and gold; a nose ring and some bracelets that dangled daintily from Rebekah's arm.

Rebekah had an older brother named Laban.  As soon as he heard this news and saw the expensive jewelry that Rebekah was now wearing, Laban, went out to the well to greet Eliezer with a warm welcome.  “Come you who are blessed of the LORD.  Why are you standing here?  I have prepared the house for you and your camels. “

Have you ever had the exciting experience of telling your own brother about a new guest that comes from your Father's people, who lives in a distance land? Or let me put it this way:  Have you ever had the pleasure of telling someone that you loved about God's Holy Spirit?  How awesome is that?  Rebekah got to do that in a similar way when she told Laban about Eliezer.  Isn’t it fun, to relate the interesting circumstances around how you found each other at the well, and to introduce the guest to your brother and watch each of them slowly understand the importance of the visit?  

Isn’t it fun to know that the presence of this faithful servant who often arrives unexpectedly as you go about your daily tasks could totally change everything about your life in an instant?  Or eventually even the life of your brother too?  

So it was in the case of Rebekah.  It was an exciting unanticipated surprise in the middle of a mundane day of daily chores.  God had brought hope, joy and anticipation into the everyday.

Laban led Eliezer to the house of Nahor, Abraham’s brother.  Eliezer's camels were housed in a clean, well cared for barn, and they were well fed by the servants of Nahor, who helped Eliezer's men unload and guard the treasures he brought from Abraham.  

The servants of Nahor must have been amazed at the richness of the things that were loaded on Eliezer’s camels backs.  Laban must have used his most trusted servants to help with this task, in order to prevent theft of the gifts which were exceedingly wonderful and exquisite.  

The servants of Laban and Nahor must have wondered where Eleizer was taking these valuable gifts, and why he had them loaded on the backs of his camels on such a long journey.

 

Eliezer was taken inside to the family's best quarters and made to be very comfortable.  He and the men with him received fresh clean water to wash their feet.  They were given time to rest and be refreshed from their journey.  

Eliezer was invited to a lavish dinner that evening.

It surely seemed that all things were going well with Eliezer's quest of finding a bride for his master's son.  Eliezer could clearly see God's will and help in every direction he turned, and he was feeling like this was the right place to be.    

Eliezer, still being a good and very cautious servant, decided to still be carefully cautious and to throw in a few more little tests to determine and confirm his good feelings about Rebekah.  He prayed about these things as he rested before dinner and he waited for further conversations with her family. 

The extra precautions were not unusual traits for this good servant of Abraham.  Eliezer was always very careful in how he proceeded to go about his master's business.  He used great wisdom and sought out God's help each time, in every large or small task.  It would have been totally foolish for him to have blurted out the facts about his mission when he first met Rebekah at the well.  She might have thought he was crazy, and she might not have led him to her family.  The way Eliezer had shown her respect, and given her nice gifts, and waited patiently on her to confirm his signs were less obvious, more respectful and much easier for Rebekah to understand and relate to.  

When Rebekah saw Eliezer bow down and worship God for leading him to the home of his master’s relatives, she must have realized that she too had seen a sign from God.  Eliezer had earned her trust, and she perceived him to be an honest and sincere noble man.  

Now he would continue the process of confirmations that evening when he joined the family for dinner by being totally honest about exactly who he was and exactly why he was there.  It was time for him to reveal the rest of the story.

Eliezer would see what type of reaction Rebekah’s family gave to the whole purpose surrounding his journey, and then if all went well; he would proceed to make the arrangements for Rebekah with great caution, all the time following God’s lead as he went on through the process of securing a bride for Isaac.