God's Loving Appointing of Your Spouse (09/10/2023)

Park Meadows Church

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Well, I can see the handwriting on the wall with this musical group. We're now going to have to build a huge auditorium because people are going to flood in.

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Serious about it. It's all we needed. We've been praying for that for years. Now we have it.

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What a blessing. I'm sitting there just listening, and it's what

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I do because I can't sing, so I listen. And you guys, all of you, sounded great, but thank you for the leadership, you guys, that were up here.

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Really appreciate it. Awesome. So, here we are.

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Enjoy your last few moments as a tiny church. And then, as the people come in, be sure and root the tears out by giving them this.

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Hello. Glad to meet you. Take one of these. This is what we base everything on right here.

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Wow. Me and Charlotte were talking about something that Ben came over to my house,

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I guess it was last week. He wanted me to watch a preacher that sometimes debates all kinds of people like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and everything else, and Roman Catholics.

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And he's quite the preacher. He's a Reformed Baptist preacher, which means he understands

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God is in control of everything. So, his doctrine is really good. He's really sound, and he's quite incredible to listen to.

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But anyway, he was talking about Thomas Aquinas. And I vaguely remember reading about him when

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I studied theology as a young man in my 20s. I read about him.

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He was basically a philosopher and also a theologian who turned the

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Roman Catholic Church the direction it is now. So, you can thank him for that, which is not a good thing, because what he did was he took humanism and made it higher than the authority of this book right here.

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So, you have humanism here, like the human mind, and everything it can concoct is here, and the

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Bible's here. And this is where the Roman Catholic Church is. We have quite a number of friends that are

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Roman Catholic saved people. You can be saved in the church because they have a Bible. It's a little different than ours in significant places, but enough truth is in their

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Bible where they can see the gospel and be saved, of course. But the belief that they have of a mix of humanism with the

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Word of God is so similar to what you were teaching in Sunday school today, Ben. What was the phrase there where they were worshiping

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Jehovah, and then what was the other one? Molech. Together.

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Worshiping both. Well, that's a beautiful picture of the Roman Catholic Church. But Thomas Aquinas is the man that brought that about.

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He was such a strong, apparently, a strong leader, and when he would write his philosophical works and people would read them, they were swayed in that direction, and it's still that way today.

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So if they had just listened to Augustine, then we'd all be Roman Catholics and be happy about it, but they didn't go with that route.

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They went the other route. Went with humanism. The modern church is going that direction, too. It just is.

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It's just a mix. It's a mix of secularism and religion, and it's a terrible, tragic mix, and Ben did a about how

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God hates that mix. He hates it when we mix something with the truth, and boy, that was great teaching, and it's just, there's nothing new under the sun, though, is there?

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It's the same old stuff that Satan does every generation. He just needs new people.

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He doesn't change what he does, right? Well, let's get on the positive here. Let's turn to Genesis chapter 24.

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We don't want to talk about what's going on in the world too much. You're very discouraged, right? Let's talk about what's going on with the

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Lord. So we're talking about marriage and family and still under the topic of the man's role in the marriage and the family and child -rearing, and we're on the topic of love, that he has got to be the lover, the leader in that area in the home.

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So some of the things that I'm talking about last Sunday and today, people might ask, okay, what does it have to do with marriage?

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I thought you were talking about marriage. Well, let me ask you this. Do you really think that any number of hours that we could talk about marriage would help any marriage if you don't get the love thing right?

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And so I know people don't understand my methods. I really don't care because I don't work for you, okay?

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So God tells me what to preach. And by the way, no one has complained, so I'm not getting at anybody here.

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It's just that I just know that you wonder, why are we talking about this when we're supposed to be talking about that?

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Well, because that won't work without love. And I will promise you, until you go through this study we're doing right now, you don't understand all of God's love.

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You understand a lot about the fluffy part that the world talks about and that worldly churches talk about, but you don't understand

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God. Charlotte and I were talking about that on the way over about how, I don't remember what brought it up, but we were just talking about maybe some of the stuff

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Ben's been teaching, but just how God really is compared to how everybody we run around with, of course, kind of think he is.

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He is so different. And the God that people worship in this city today is one they concocted in their mind.

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Many people, many, many thousands of people, tens of thousands of people have concocted a

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God in their mind that they're worshiping that is not the God of the Bible. And if they knew the God of the Bible, they would not even like him, okay?

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Because he doesn't do things like people think he should do it. Now, part of this is that when we look at God, we say

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God is love, okay? But what does that mean unless you understand what God's love is and how it works and how it functions?

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And if you can't understand that, you can't understand how to have it in the home. And that's why so many marriages don't make it today, because how many marriages today really are based and grounded in scripture and have

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Jesus really as the center of that marriage? And they're in a strong church every Sunday so that preacher can tell that husband how to be a good husband.

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Because that's the only person that can tell a man anything is the preacher. I mean, they don't listen to anybody else.

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Right? Do we? We'd like, we kind of know what's going on, we think. And if a preacher is not telling a man how to be a man, the wife sure is going to tell him.

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Now she can leave him, but she can't change him. Okay. But guess who can? God can.

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So if a preacher is preaching this book, and it's not that the preacher can do it, but he has in his hands the tools to change men.

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And when we change the men, we change the home. And when we change the home, we change the church. When we change the church, we change the country. And when we change

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America, everything in the world rises and falls with America right now. Now that can change, but that's how it is.

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It's a huge effect when we understand. Now, if we don't even understand the basic thing of marriage, which is love, we can't go any further.

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So with that in mind, let's read a love story. You want to? Genesis 24 .1.

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I'll save the fire and brimstone for later. Let's do a love story. Listen, this is a beautiful love story.

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If I were a teenager today, I would want to hear this story. And it's a dreamy story.

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And for all of us who are adults, it's still a dreamy story.

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Genesis 24 .1. First of all, let me tell you about a man that plays a central role in this story.

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His name is Eleazar or Eleazar. And he is the servant of Abraham.

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And in this passage we're reading, it never names him. But if you go back to Genesis chapter 15, it names him.

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So that's why we know his name. And it's not going to name him here. So I thought I would name him.

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His name is Eleazar. And so this is who the servant is we're talking about here.

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So Abraham was old and well stricken in age. And the

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Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. I love that word blessed when you understand it from the

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Hebrew mind. More camels, more cattle, more wealth than anyone else.

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And yet today preachers are telling you, oh, well, God doesn't bless Christians here. It's all blessings in heaven.

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But here it says he blessed him in all things, which includes the spiritual blessings and the physical blessings.

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And when God's hands on your life, sometimes he chooses to create wealth. It's interesting. Who was it was just asking me?

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Might have been Noah. I don't know. Somebody was asking me. They'd heard Brother Myron. No, no, no. No, it was you.

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It was Jeannie had heard a tape about taping. Where is it?

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Electrons from Brother Myron. And, you know, he was talking about God's promise of wealth and how it's conditional.

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He learned that from me most likely. But anyway, like, like God says, I will bring wealth if you do this right.

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So it's conditional. And then he names quite a few things. That's six, I make things that he names that you need to do.

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If he, if you expect God to bring wealth to your family and that's generational wealth over time, as you work together as a family business, that's the

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Bible model. All right. But you mentioned that you thought you heard him or you did hear him say, but you weren't sure if he explained it.

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That had you word that sometimes he does. Sometimes he does, or it's an exception.

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There are some exceptions. Remember that? And you were asking me, what are they? And I said, I have, I don't know. I've never heard him say that. Yeah. That was the answer.

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You're you came and you helped us because we weren't, we didn't know the answer, but that was the answer. So he said, and I had never heard him say this.

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He said, but there, you know, there are a few exceptions. In other words, he doesn't want all Christians to be wealthy. And I said, well,

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Jeannie, I've never heard him say that. And you walked up and said, no, what he's talking about is his assignment.

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And you know how Myron talks a lot about how God has an assignment for each one of us. Well, it is a fact that sometimes it's

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God's sovereign will that his assignment for a particular person might be to be a missionary in the middle of Africa with no money.

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Right. So your assignment. Well, yeah.

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Not sure. That's a great example, but I mean, she wasn't wealthy. Mother Tracy wasn't wealthy. So that's what he meant.

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So that's a great thing to add to the teaching is that you do have to take into consideration

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God's assignment, but don't ever use that as an excuse and think, well, God has not assigned me to have wealth in my family.

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Generally, generally, the general teaching is that he wants you to be like Abraham. He wants to bless you.

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And the only reason sometimes we don't get blessed is there's things God wants us to learn that we need to get right.

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But notice what it says about Abraham. Abraham was old and well -stricken in age. So he'd lived long enough to learn some lessons.

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Hadn't he? He got some things wrong. He made some mistakes in his life and he learned from them.

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And the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. So apparently Abraham fulfilled the conditions that God laid out for, for God to create wealth in his family.

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And, and boy, did he have it. One of the wealthiest men in the world. In fact, if you remember the stories about Abraham, he had to go in there and save a lot.

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And he defeated how many Kings to two Kings or three, two or three

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Kings that had, you know, taking tax money and built armies and Abraham had his own army over here.

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He was so wealthy. See, that's what I like to shoot for right there. Wealth brings, listen, wealth puts the moat around your castle and your castle is your family.

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So nothing wrong with wealth. Hollywood wants you to think if you're a Christian, you should never seek wealth. That is not

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God. That is Satan because Satan is the God of poverty. Now that's not even my topic, but Myron brought it up through Jeannie.

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And, and so blessed, I can't get past that word. Blessed means physical blessings and spiritual blessings and protection.

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And so many things that God brings when we're blessed. So we want to seek that blessing. Not that we're seeking wealth.

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We want to seek the blessing. It can bring wealth because God wants us to have influence in the world.

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And believe it or not, the Bible teaches in the book of Proverbs that money brings you influence. Now, is that weird or what?

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Would you even believe that if you didn't see it in the scripture? But it teaches that people will not listen to a poor man.

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Now God's not saying that that's correct and right. He's just saying that humans, human beings are like that.

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That's human nature. So there you have it. But Abraham was a man people listened to.

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Abraham had God's hand on his life. He was blessed in all things.

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Now look at verse two. And Abraham, and he's getting older, right? And Abraham said unto his eldest servant.

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Now this is the unnamed man, but he's named in chapter 15, Eliezer, his oldest servant.

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So Eliezer had been with Abraham since maybe Abraham was a young man.

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He'd been with him for a long, long time. And he was getting on up in years too, but he was over all the other servants and that included an army.

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Okay. Significant enough to beat three Kings in battle. And so this is a powerful man.

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Eliezer is a powerful, like a general. Okay. And he ruled over all that Abraham had.

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So Eliezer actually controlled all of the wealth that Abraham had.

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He was in control of all of it. He didn't own it. Abraham did, but Abraham knew he didn't own it. It was God's money, wasn't it?

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It's always God's. And so Eliezer had this powerful position. Now look at this.

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Could I pray thee thy hand under my thigh,

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Abraham says to Eliezer, and I will make you swear by Jehovah, the

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God of heaven and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the

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Canaanites among whom I dwell. All right. We can't just go past this thing of why did he make him put his hand under his thigh?

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Picture Abraham seated and he makes Eliezer slide his hand underneath his thigh and leave it there while they do this oath together.

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Don't you think that's odd? Well, if you go look into that and the practice in that day and time, you know, when you look at the

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Abrahamic covenant, there are some really odd things that happened there too. Like they kill these animals and Jesus takes the place of Abraham and God puts

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Abraham asleep. And Jesus takes his place and the father in Jesus, the father, the kind of glory in Jesus circle around the dead animals and say, if any of the one of us breaks the covenant, may we be as these dead animals.

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That's how they did the covenants back then. And so it was actually between God and Abraham, but God put him to sleep because he knew

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Abraham would break the covenant. Right? So he let Jesus take his place. And that's what Jesus did on the cross.

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By the way, he took the place of Abraham right there and was made as those dead animals. But all of us come in under the

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Abrahamic covenant. That's why we're saved. Jesus took our place in that covenant, but this is a small way of picturing it when you don't have animals to kill, but it's a covenant between Abraham and Eliezer that Eliezer will obey

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Abraham and not choose the wrong woman for his son to marry. I mean, this is important to this man.

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It is to any father, isn't it? And so by putting the hand under the thigh, it pictures, well, it's in close proximity to the part of the body that would be circumcised.

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And that circumcision is the picture of the presence of God in a family because those who were uncircumcised were godless.

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Like the people you read about Sunday school pagans. They were people that worship false gods that don't have anything to do with God, but the circumcised, which back in the

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Jewish days, that was the picture that these people have chosen God. And so that is a picture that not only will

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Eliezer be under an oath to go pick the right woman, but by doing the oath in this fashion, it pictures that God will be present with him and will actually guide him.

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And it will be God that picks the woman. It's calling upon the sovereignty of God to lead this wonderful man, this powerful man,

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Eliezer, to the woman that God had picked already. Now tell me this is not powerful.

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If you're talking about your children and you're teaching them what it's like to find the right person to marry, you need to include that God is sovereign.

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That's why I feel so sorry for churches that don't even understand this or don't even believe it and actually hate the doctrine. Is that God before the foundation of the world already chose the spouse for your child.

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They're out there. They've been being trained by somebody. Somebody has been rearing that child up and training them and teaching them manners or not, teaching them how to live or not, teaching them how to make a living or not.

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And all of these things that should be teaching whatever the, if it's a boy or girl, whatever they should be being taught.

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God already has that in control and has already selected that person for your child. But how do, how often do we take it as seriously as Abraham did where we make an oath with,

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I know we're not going to have our servant go pick the spouse, but where, where it's so serious that you want to do everything in your power to make sure that it's

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God's selection that we go find. Do you think ladies and gentlemen, that this indicates that the parents at least ought to have a role in who their kids marry.

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I used to call it veto power. Didn't I, Katie? I love to choose

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Katie to talk about for this example. I could extrapolate a little and make it preach better.

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Katie, should I do that? No, I'm leaving. Okay. So I'm not, I'm not even going to go there, but boy, am

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I tempted. But anyway, it's okay to have veto power. I'm going to leave it at that. You agree,

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Dave? Amen. He agrees. Yeah. Cause he would have never met her if I hadn't vetoed a certain person.

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But anyway it's important. This is what this is teaching. So, so this is just amazing.

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So he makes him swear in the Hebrew fashion. And I will make thee swear by the

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Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you will not take a wife from the

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Canaanites. Now you got, the new Testament says, when we read these stories, they're the physical story of a spiritual lesson in a picture.

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So what is that telling us that we don't want our kids to marry? Especially well,

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Canaanites, right? That's literal. What does it picture? Well, one thing is Canaanites.

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That's what Dave's saying. Okay. And another might be any ites.

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You don't want to marry in any of the ites, right? Pagans, false

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God worshipers, people whose philosophies are totally wrong, right?

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Totally ungodly, unbiblical philosophies that they grew up under. And you don't want them going that direction.

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This is so serious with Abraham here. It's interesting that, yeah, it's interesting that Abraham says among whom

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I dwell, the Canaanites. See, so we all dwell among Canaanites, don't we? I mean, there's more lost people around us, even in a little coarse cannon, than there are saved people, a huge, vast, more larger number.

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And that is the population, which your child may choose from as far as who they may marry. So that's why you have to give them some guidance because there's more

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Canaanites than there are non -ites. All right. I invented a new word there, non -ites.

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That's what we are. We're non -ites. Put that on the side. See if we grow, make it, that'll make us grow.

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The non -ites Baptist church. I like it. Brother Davis, non -ite

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Christian school. You want to get that number down from 200 to around six again.

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What? What Dave? A non -ite. Exactly. A non -ite.

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Yeah. But a non -ite. Okay. So, but thou shalt go into my country and to my kindred and take a wife and to my son,

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Isaac. Well now what was his country? Because God had sent him away from a country to go toward the promised land, but he wasn't there yet.

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Right. But, but what's he calling his country right here? Don't you think it's where he, where he came from, where he was born, which is where God told him to leave.

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But he wants him to go that direction to pick a wife. And we've got to look into this and see why is that?

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Because there's probably some false God worshipers there because that's all it was. The Ur of the

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Chaldees was all about multiple gods, right? He's telling him to go back there and pick a wife, but let's, let's keep reading here.

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The Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father's house. Now he's talking about the place that he came from and from the land of my kindred and which spake to me.

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See, that's the calling God had. Listen, you cannot, I love rabbit trails, but you cannot get saved by doing something.

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But all churches that I grew up in Baptist church is supposed to be the best. Right. That I grew up in taught that you did it.

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You got saved by doing something. What did you do to get saved? When did you get saved? You know, that sort of thing, but you get saved when

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God calls you, God has to speak to your heart through the Holy spirit and change your mind about who

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God is because you think you're God. You make every decision about what you're going to do, what you like, who you go around with, who you're going to marry all day.

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You make all these decisions because you are God. And the Holy spirit comes to you at a moment in time and says, you know what? You're not.

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And if you were, you're a lousy God. You're a terrible Lord of your own life. Look at Jesus.

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He's the true Lord. Look at him now. You can, I'm going to make it where you can actually see him and desire him and look at him.

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And then all of a sudden, for the first time in your life, you desire not to be your own God. That's how you get saved. And you can't do that.

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The church can't do it. The preach can't preacher. That's a mix between a preacher and a priest is a preach. He can't do it.

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A prayer formula can't do it. God has to do it. It's between you and God. And, and when that happens and he turns the lights on,

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Jesus will be irresistible to you at that moment. And you're saved. And then you start doing stuff that you think saved you, but you already saved before you do it.

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Those are effects of it. And yet the churches take those effects and say, no, that's the stuff you got to do anyway. That's, that's another thing.

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That's false religion of our day. But here, God, he says, you know,

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I was in this pagan country where my father raised me and God spoke to me.

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That's the calling. So God called Abraham out of a pagan land and false religions, godless, idolatrous, where they even sacrifice babies to fire and killed him under Moloch.

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And he called Abraham said, look, Abraham, I'm the true God. There's only one. It's me. And you're going to follow me and you're going to leave this place.

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And Abraham said, Abraham, I want to show me where to go. Show me how to do this. I'm with you.

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Let's go. Just like following Jesus. Right? And this is, so this is what he's referring back to this time.

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And God spake to me and they swear unto me saying unto thy seed, will

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I give this land? I'm going to take you into a new land. He shall, he shall send his angel before thee and thou shalt take a wife and to my son from hence.

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So he's telling him, go back to that place that God sent me out of. And, and God will send the word angel, by the way, means messenger.

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So it's not always an angel. Sometimes it's actually an appearance of Jesus in the old Testament, Yahweh. Sometimes it's an angel.

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It just means a messenger. And he's telling Eliezer, look, I made you take an oath and you took it, which means if you don't do it, may you be as these dead animals.

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And, um, so you took it, but God's going to send a messenger before you to help you pick this wife.

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So don't be afraid. Don't be fearful. God will go with you. Isn't that great? Isn't that awesome?

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And so, but isn't it odd that he's sending him back to Ur of Chaldeas or at least to the edge of it.

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So we got to find out why that is, but that's, that's what's going on here. Uh, let's see.

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All right. So let it drop down to verse nine. And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham, his master and swear to him concerning the matter.

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And the servant took 10. Now look at this. Think about the value in today's money of this stuff. He takes 10 camels and doesn't even tell all the stuff he's taken yet.

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It'll tell it later. Lots of gold, lots of jewelry, lots of money.

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He took a wealth, uh, you know, packed all those camels with bags of money and the servant took 10 camels and the camels of his master and he departed.

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It doesn't mean he just took 10 camels. They all had bags of travel bags on their full of stuff, money, all kinds of gifts and things like that.

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And he departed for all the goods of his master were in his hand.

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Now this is a picture of us. Aren't we servants of the Lord? Okay. We're like Eliezer.

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Are we good servants like this? Then we got to ask that question. Do we pray like Eliezer is about to, and there's so many lessons in this story, but the main thing is the story is about love.

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Okay. But, but there's so many messages about what it is to be a good servant, which is what we are like.

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All of the stuff that God puts in our hand is not our stuff. If you will teach your children, that money will never hurt them.

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But look at Hollywood, how money hurts those families. When they get wealthy overnight, we call it new money. What happens to the next generation of family?

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They found like 24 year old died. It's the son of this actor died yesterday and they don't tell what they died from, but guess what it is.

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It's drugs. It's always drugs or, or something like that. The money destroys them.

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Why? Because they think it's their money. They think they earned it on their own and it destroys.

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But if you understand, it's not even your money that you're a servant and the master owns the money and it's his business and everything about it is his.

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And you're just, you're just trying to stay in tune with him and do exactly what he would do with that money. It won't hurt you.

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So mostly not too worried about money hurting you anyway, are you? But anyway, let's go on. Right. I could use a little of that.

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I'm not worried about hurting me, but you do, you need to be worried about it and you think about it. And the servant took these 10 camels and he departed for all the goods of his master were in his hand.

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And he arose and went to Mesopotamia and to the city of Nahor.

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Now Nahor is interesting because when God called Abraham, I don't know if you remember it, but his father went with him out, out of the land, at least a certain way out of the land, not, maybe not all the way out, but to the edge.

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And he built a city called Nahor. He built that city. So that's where he sent the servant because he knew his brother would be there.

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That's who he's looking for. It's his brother who has a beautiful daughter and he wants his son to marry someone from his own family.

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Now that's the goal. It's not so much that you're going back to Ur of Chaldees where the pagans are.

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It's like, he's looking for a family rather than pagans. Verse 12.

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And he said, Oh Lord, God of my master, Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day.

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And I think that's where the phrase Godspeed, I wish you Godspeed when you're going on a trip, it comes from right here. It's really good speed.

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Send me good speed this day, but that comes from God, right? And show kindness unto my master

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Abraham. So the first thing I noticed about this servant's prayer is that he is not praying for selfish things.

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He's praying for something for God. His master is a picture of God. So like when we pray, we should be praying for stuff

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God wants us to have to do his stuff in the world with, to do his things with, with that thing we prayed for.

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Not just because we want it. That's a hard lesson for us to learn because we start out being our own gods, right?

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So we have to move from that to letting God be God. So when we pray, we pray for stuff that God desires and what his will is in his world.

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Bring that to me so I can be a helper with you and serve you and do that with it.

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Wow. Wouldn't that change our prayer lives? We'd be like Jesus and we add, nevertheless, that will be done.

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You know, that's the right way to pray. All right. So, um, behold,

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I stand here by the well of water. So he had already, now he had traveled all the way to Nahor in the edge of, or the

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Caldees where his brother lived near there. And he finds himself, uh, at a water well.

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And the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water there and take it back to their houses so they can do all the things they need to do with the water.

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And he prays in his prayer. He says, let it come to pass. Now tell me if you think his prayers are specific or not.

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I remember reading a book on prayer when I was 20 something and one of the big themes in that book was be specific in your prayers.

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Don't be vague. Like don't pray Lord, forgive us of our many sins. Amen. You know, or Lord help the world.

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Amen. You know, be specific and look, look at, look at this. He says, and let it come to pass that the damsel, the young woman to whom

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I will say, let down your picture. I ask you that I may drink.

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And then Lord, when I ask her that I want her to say, and she will say drink and I will give your camels drink.

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Also. I want it to be that specific where she doesn't just give me drink, but she asked if my camels need water to make it be like that.

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Lord, why do you think he's asking this so specifically?

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Because what do you think happens to him if he brings the wrong woman home and she marries

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Isaac? He's saying, Lord, do not let me make a mistake. Not, you know, he, he crossed some

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T's and dotted some I's and said, look, let her ask me if I want water. But also every single one of these camels,

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I want her to ask the camels if they want water. Let the same be she that thou hast appointed.

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Now we can't go past that word. Can we? Because this is the word. The modern church does not like to believe in.

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What does it mean when he says, let this same woman, if she asked the, if she does those things so that I know that's her, let her be the one you appointed.

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What does that mean? He's talking to God. He's still praying. Well appointed, the Hebrew word is yalka and it means number one, to be the right one, but what it, or the correct one, but what it really means it's a causative verb, which means it's going to cause something and it means to decide something.

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So what he's saying is let me find the woman that you decided would be the right woman before the foundation of the world.

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This is predestination for the four ordained wife for Isaac.

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Let me find her by her doing these things so that I know that you're showing me this is her that you've already picked.

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You've already picked her. Let me find her. That's how parents should feel with their kids when the kids are looking for spouses.

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God's already picked them. Let us together, find them instead of you picking them because you might pick the wrong one.

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And dads, listen to me, dads, you tell that child from the time she's Fern's age, dad gets to veto.

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I'm not going to tell you who to marry, but I do have a veto. Say it just like that. It'll work. It will work.

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And then use it. I remember when it was Jenny, let's pick on her. She's not here.

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There was this particular young man. I told Jenny, I said, you're not going to date him, email him or do anything like, like nothing.

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And I told the young man that too. And then I found out through the grapevine probably was through her little brother,

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Paul, right? He was the one that watched you. He protected you girls a little bit when he was younger. And he would say, dad, that guy talked to Jenny.

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And so I got a ball bat and stuck it in my trunk and I'm not preaching here.

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I'm telling the truth. I went over to his house with the bat in my hand and I knocked on the door and he didn't answer it and I knocked again and he didn't answer it.

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And so now I'm really mad. So I go and I throw the bat in the trunk and I get a piece of paper and I, I stick it on his door and it says,

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I was here. I know you talked to Jenny and I have a ball bat in my hand and don't talk to her again.

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And he never did until years later when he apologized to me. And he had changed by then. He was a nice young man.

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But anyway, he wasn't the right man. So listen, that's called a veto. Gentlemen, you have a, my permission to, you know, to act in that manner.

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Don't call me when he is home and you hit him and you go to jail though. Okay. Cause I don't think

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I can help you there, but anyway, he got the idea, but that's the dad, that's the dad's job.

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So this is Eliezer's job here. Lord only let me choose the one that you appointed.

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You foreordain you predestined to be his wife for thy servant

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Isaac. And therefore, thereby shall I know that thou has show kindness to my master by picking a wonderful daughter, new daughter.

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And I can tell you, this is a father. It's wonderful to have sons because when they get married, it brings you new daughters.

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Now it's okay. When your daughter's married, they bring you sons, but it's not quite as special, but it's, it's pretty special.

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So Dave Huber would agree with me there. He got, he got the good end of that deal, right? Dave Huber senior. It's a good deal.

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But anyway, this is, this is so important. This appointed word. Okay. And he came to pass and I, and I love this.

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Watch this. Okay. It came to pass before he was done speaking.

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We're talking about Eliezer is praying and he's praying out loud, by the way, out in the wilderness, nobody out there, but a well and maybe a few people at the distance.

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And he's praying out loud to God. And while he is still talking, God answers his prayer.

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See, God knows the answer before you do the asking, but we're still supposed to ask. People ask all the time.

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Well, if you're a Calvinist, how come you pray? How come you witnessed it? You probably don't do you. And I've got some answers for them on that one.

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All right. But I mean, because Charlotte and I may have witnessed more than any two people in this city.

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We knocked on almost every door at least once. And in my head at four times. So yeah, we witnessed.

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And then they go, Oh, really? Oh, I didn't know that. Well, how come? Why do you do it if God chooses who he's going to save? Because God told us to tell everybody the gospel.

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We don't know who's going to get saved. They have to hear it. Listen, God's elect are going to be saved.

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Would you agree with that? But they ain't going to be saved without the water and the spirit. And that's the word of God and the

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Holy spirit. It take, that's God's method that he also ordained for people to get saved.

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So we're the ones that have to take the water to people. The Holy spirit does his work, but we take them the water.

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And this is called the water of the word in the book of Ephesians. We have to take the water to him. But anyway, so here is this young woman.

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It's just about to offer Eliezer some water, isn't she? And so, um, where was

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I? Where are you at spake? Where was it? Oh yeah. Before in verse 15, before he had done speaking before he had done praying, behold,

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Rebecca came out. Who was born of Bethuel son of Milka, the wife of Nahor who built the city that we're talking about, right?

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The city that was named after him. So he's a powerful man too. Abraham's brother.

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So Abraham and his brothers were wealthy individuals. This man built a whole city and she comes out with her picture upon her shoulder.

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Now picture this young woman with the picture of water on her shoulder, walking out towards this well and Eliezer sees her and the damsel was very fair to look upon.

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She was very pretty. She was a virgin. Neither had any man known her and she went down to the well and filled her picture and came up and the servant ran to meet her.

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Now I want you to think about this a little bit while we're talking about this, cause you know, uh,

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I love the topic of God's in control of everything, right? We, you know, I love it, right?

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But the Bible also teaches we have responsibility and that God uses both and that always both are happening at the same time.

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How many times have you heard me say that when you do see a passage on the predestination in the same passage, it will talk about stuff you're supposed to do, right?

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Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You have to call on his name. That's your part. But God's part is he chooses you and he calls you and makes you want to call on his name.

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That's God's part. It's always both at the same time. So here we have this verse 14 pick the one that has been appointed by God.

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That's the predestination. And here versus 15 and 16. Here you find the servant running towards this woman before she gets away.

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He's doing his part. Is that important? What if he hadn't done that? Well, that wasn't going to happen cause

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God already had the whole thing planned. But I mean, didn't he in his mind have to decide to do that?

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Didn't he in his mind have to take that oath with Abraham? Didn't he have to pray? Didn't he have to ask for guidance?

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Didn't he have to do everything he could do to try to know God's will in this case. And all of that was his responsibility.

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And if he had failed, if that was humanly possible, which from a human viewpoint, it was possible that he could have been killed by Abraham and he knew that.

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So here he runs, he sees this beautiful woman with, at least she has the picture of water. So somebody asked you, try to look at it from his viewpoint.

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He knows God's in control just like we do, but does that make it easy to live this life when trouble comes or when stuff happens and you know,

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God's in control going to take care of you. Do you still worry sometimes a little bit? Is that terrible? No, it's human.

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It is kind of terrible, but we all do it and it's human. So he's wondering, okay,

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I've prayed this prayer. Abraham told me God would send a messenger. And I've, I feel kind of silly now that I prayed and asked

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God to make her give me water and the camels. I mean, God doesn't have to do it that way, but that's what

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I asked him to do. I'm feeling kind of silly. Well, maybe that's not going to happen, but here's a woman with water and she's pretty.

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I'm going to let see, make sure that, you know, this is probably her. Do you see him trying to take a little control here?

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Isn't that human? Don't we all do that? Boy, I can speak for a man.

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I know we as men, we try to help God a lot, don't we? And sometimes we stump our toe, don't we?

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All right. But he didn't, he didn't this time. So he runs, he starts running towards this woman.

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And as she comes up with that pitcher full of water, he goes running towards her and the servant ran to meet her.

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And she said, drink my Lord. And he's going, now God's in control. And she hasted.

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Now, now watch, this is fascinating. You watch this young woman. You think

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Eliezer is running all over the place. Wait till she sees what's in those saddlebags. She is running back to mom and dad.

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I found my man. All right. You'll see that in a minute.

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And she, but even now, she didn't have a clue what's going on yet, but she hasted. See, she's not like, she's not slow in her actions.

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She's, she's quick to get things done. That's a really good trait to have. She hasted and let down her pitcher upon her hand and gave him to drink.

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And when she had done giving him drink, she said without him, now I have to give him credit.

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He did not interfere and he didn't look over at his camels and where there's your heart thirsty. He didn't do anything.

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And she said, I will draw water for your camels also, until they have done drinking.

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Do you know why I think that happened? Because he wasn't going to ask about, he didn't care about the camels anymore.

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This is the one. So he didn't even hit about the camels because he didn't care about the camels, but she said it and it reminded him,

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I'm sure. So now he's thinking, Oh my goodness. And you, you watch it. You can see him thinking, Oh my goodness.

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And she hasted and emptied the pitcher into the trough. And again, unto the well to draw water and drew for all of the camels going back every time she had to, to have enough water for all those camels.

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And she didn't just drudge over there. She ran and got the water, ran back, ran and got the water, ran back.

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And, uh, he's thinking, well, I've found him an athletic wife too. This is great. And the man wondering at her held his peace.

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So he's just watching her. Come back with the water. This probably took an hour and he's just going,

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I'm not even believing this, but it's what he asked for. Isn't that human? How many of you would honestly say every time

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God answers a prayer, you are surprised. It's just so human.

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I remember when, uh, when I had that bad foot thing that happened a while back and, um, it,

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I'd had it before and it took six months and I asked every, not everybody, but just anyone that came into my presence.

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I said, man, pray for me. I need God just to heal this because I can't be, I can't not be able to walk for six months and that's how long it takes it to get well.

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And several people said, I'll pray for you. And I was praying for me and three days later, it was just gone.

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And it was well, and then I was able to come up and preach that Sunday. And that was a miracle. And I was so surprised God did that.

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Why are we that way? But here he is. He's just wondering, but he held his peace.

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He didn't say anything. And he's wondering to wit, whether the

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Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. Would you call that doubt?

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It's a little bit of doubt. And yet he's watching her do exactly what he asked the Lord to have her do for an hour or longer.

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And he's sitting here just wondering, Lord, is this it? This guy's powerful, but he's also really human.

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He is a powerful human, but all he is is human. But isn't it wonderful that God loves us.

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And God made this whole plan, putting the treasure in earthen vessels because God likes it this way.

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Cause he loves to like God in time, which is the Holy spirit. Now he loves to watch us and try us and see if we'll quit or see if we'll keep going, see if we'll run or walk slow.

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See if we'll believe the very prayer we ask when it gets answered. He loves watching us in time and space to watch us do that.

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That's God with us. That's Jesus, Jehovah, God with us. I mean, I'm sorry, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us and the

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Holy spirit plays that role now. So this is all happening because it's God's will that humanity be this way.

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We're not perfect. Listen, when you mess up, by the way, when you mess up,

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I want you to remember the verse that says God put this treasure. That means the new man, your salvation, part of you,

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God put this treasure in earthen vessels. That means in a body that does things wrong.

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Sometimes a human body where we don't get it right. And he said he does it on purpose so that God would get the glory when we do get it right.

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Isn't that something? I love that verse. It helps me not get so down on myself when I mess up because it would be a daily down on myself problem.

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And so I know, I know I live in this bat where the old man battles the new man inside of us all the time, every day.

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Don't you think that gets tiring? You got to decide to be spirit filled. It doesn't just happen. You're not just a spirit filled person.

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You have to say, Jesus, take my hand. Let's go together for a while here because I messed up. Don't want to mess up.

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And you, and you work at that. And it's a relationship with Jesus and God loves it. That way is why I made it this way.

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So anyway, so here, he's sitting here wondering, is this it?

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Verse 22. And it came to pass as the camels had done drinking that the man took a golden earring and a half shekel weight of gold and two bracelets for her hands of 10 shekels of gold.

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I don't know what that's worth now, but a shekel was, was quite heavy.

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Ben, how much is a little bitty gold coin about that size worth right now?

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About an ounce, just an ounce. Okay.

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All right. And he's got bags full of these things. And he said, whose daughter are you?

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Now he's going to find out, did she come from the family that Abraham commanded him? Like I want, I want her to,

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I want my son to marry into our family, not the pagans. Okay. So where'd you come from? And she said, he says, tell me,

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I pray the is there room in your father's house for us to lodge in now he's helping

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God again. Cause he's going to go home with her. He's already given her a bunch of golden earrings and probably a peek into those saddlebags.

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And she says, well, sure. Yeah, I can find you a place. Follow me.

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And she said unto him, I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, which she bear unto

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Nahor, which is Abraham's brother. So she's exactly from the family Abraham sent him and didn't

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Abraham tell him, I'm going to send, you know, God's going to send a messenger with you to get you to the right place.

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So she said, moreover unto him, we have both straw and provender enough for the camels and room to lodge in.

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And the man bowed down his head and worshiped the Lord. Now the doubt's gone like he he's pretty, he's pretty sure this is her.

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And he said, blessed be. Now he praises God. We come to this place about like he did.

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I'm so surprised you answered that, but praise your name, you know, for answering it. And he blessed be, be the

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God of my master Abraham who has not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth.

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I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master's brother. Now I love that phrase.

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I being in the way. Now, let me tell you, I'm not even getting to the good part of this, but we're out of time, but, but we've had some good rabbit trails today,

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I have to say, but this is a great one right here. I being in the way the Lord led me, you know,

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I've had two wonderful mentors other than my parents and grandparents, and they were

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Rocky Freeman and Otis Fisher and at different times because their lives only crossed each other two years.

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So they weren't like together. So they didn't study together, but they both taught me how to know

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God's will separately, individually. And they had come to the same method, almost to the word.

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And it went like this. First of all, ask yourself, if I'm trying, like I'm trying to find the right spouse for my child, for example,

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I want to know God's will, right? Dave it's coming. I will help you pick him.

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How about that? I'll get you one. Yeah. She probably would go with grandpa picking grandpa.

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You'll do good. But anyway, so the first thing is, do you have the desire in your heart to do the thing?

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Because there's scripture that says, God, when you walk with God, God puts the desires in your heart and that's how he leads you.

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That's one of the ways God leads you. So ask yourself, did God put a desire in my heart to do the thing? The second thing is, do

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I have the wherewithal to do it? If it takes money to make that happen, can I find a way to get the money?

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That's what we don't have it, but we're trying to find a way to get the money. Okay. For a new facility for our school, maybe even a new sanctuary because of our new music group for the church.

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So does God make a way to me to have the means to, for this to happen? Thirdly, does it contradict scripture?

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If I do this and fourthly, if all those are okay, do

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I have a peace in my heart with God? If I do that, in other words, will the Holy spirit do this with me? And if not, I don't want to do it.

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That sort of thing. Do I have a peace? All right. So that's what they both taught me, but you know what? I added a fifth thing and I think it's good.

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I think they would agree when I get to him, I'm gonna say, Hey, you like it better with my thing. They're going to say, it's so much better David, because my thing is after you have those four things as a check and you think it's

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God's will, because you've checked those off. The next thing you do is you do this. You step towards, you take a step into God's will because you have two kinds of God's will.

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You've got what we call the revealed will, which is this, and you have the secret will, which is what you know when you get into it the next day.

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All right. So you can only get into God's will by taking a step and look at what he says. He says,

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I being in the way, like he had gotten all those camels together. He put all the loot, the loot in the camel bags.

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He made the whole trip. He went the right direction. He did everything he could do. He was in the way he was taking steps, steps towards God's will.

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And it says while he was in the way, the Lord led me to the very house of the woman that my master son, the son's going to marry.

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So you can't just sit in the house and pray. You can't just read your Bible. You should read your

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Bible and pray, but you got to get out of the house and take some steps towards that thing or you'll never find it.

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And that's taught right there in that passage. So the fifth thing should be there. We're out of time having a lot of fun today, but let's stop.

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Let's stand and have prayer together. And this will give me more material for next time because we're going to finish the love story next time.

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I didn't even got to the good part yet. Let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for your word and Lord, it is so full of life and direction and correctness of how to live.

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And Lord, we just pray for our poor old country that has lost the influence of this

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Bible, our poor nation. It was built on the Bible and built on you and now it's paganized and has lost its way.

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And the leadership is so weak because we don't have strong Christian leaders. Lord, it's just, it's dire at this point and the whole world is in trouble because of it.

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So Lord, we, we ask that you would raise up some young leaders out of our Christian school, out of our families here.

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Lord, no telling what you would choose to do with them. We see the stories of the prophets of old where they sometimes were able to stand up and speak and turn a nation in the right direction.

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And sometimes they were not able to, but we just pray for our children, give them strength and power and courage.

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And we pray for our nation, Lord, that you would raise up some good leaders or at least political leaders who have people around them who know your word.

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And Lord, we ask you to bless our time of fellowship today. We're enjoying being together today and bless the food we're about to have in Jesus name.

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Amen. Do you notice the difference between today and last Sunday? Last Sunday, everybody was like, ah,