Sermon Tone Analysis

3. Talk to Me - The Story of Isaac and Rebekah

God promised Abraham he would be the father of a great nation.

In order to enjoy that privileged position, he obviously had to have a son, and we have traced the struggles of faith that finally brought Abraham and Sarah their son.

His birth was the highlight of their eventful and exciting walk with God.

What happiness Isaac brought to their home!

And he was such a good boy—dutiful, obedient, and submissive to his parents.

Submissiveness would seem to be the only way to explain how old Abraham could bind the young man and lay him on the altar of sacrifice.

God substituted a ram in that suspense-packed drama of obedience and faith; Isaac was delivered and the three of them were joyfully reunited as a family.

There is every indication that it was a close family unit.

They loved each other dearly.

Isaac mourning for his mother three full years after her death would be some indication of the love they felt for one another ().

With Ishmael gone, Isaac was the only child at home and his parents’ lives revolved around him.

He never wanted for anything.

Abraham had grown to be fabulously wealthy by this time, and the record reveals that he gave it all to Isaac (, ).

Perhaps there was even a trace of smother love and overindulgence in their relationship.

It is doubtful that Abraham and Sarah realized they may have been affecting Isaac’s personality and making him poor marital material by the way they were raising him.

In fact, they had not even thought about marriage.

They were enjoying him so much they seemed to forget that he needed a wife if they were to become the progenitors of a great nation.

But after Sarah died, Abraham realized that he must take the initiative and make plans to find a mate for his son.

That is not the way our children find their marriage partners, but for that time and culture it was a beautiful love story.

For Isaac and Rebekah, it was a tender beginning.

Abraham was old when the story began.

He called for his senior servant, the manager of his entire household, and said to him, “You shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, but you shall go to my country and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac” (, ).

The Canaanites were a vile race, cursed by God and doomed to destruction.

God would not be pleased for Isaac to marry one of them.

Although Abraham’s relatives in northern Mesopotamia had their idols, they were at least a moral people who knew about God and respected him.

And they were descendants of Shem who was blessed of God.

It was the only logical place to find a wife for Isaac.

While we do not choose our children’s mates for them anymore, we must teach them from their earliest days the importance of marrying believers (cf.

; ).

It will help them find God’s choice of a life partner when the time comes for that important decision to be made.

So the old servant began the toilsome trip to the vicinity of Haran, where Abraham’s brother had remained after Abraham migrated to Canaan sixty-five years earlier.

Abraham had assured the servant that the angel of the Lord would go before him.

With that sense of divine direction, he stopped at a well in the town of Nahor, which happened to be Abraham’s brother’s name.

And he prayed that God would bring the right girl to that well and lead her to offer water for his camels.

It was a very specific request for exactly the proper mate for Isaac.

And there is a lesson in it for us.

The best way for our children to find God’s choice of a mate is to pray about it.

They can begin as children to pray about the one whom God is preparing for them.

Praying through those years will help them keep their minds on the one most important factor in their choice—the will of God.

Before the servant got to the “Amen,” God had the answer on the way.

Rebekah, who was the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother, came out with her jar on her shoulder.

Scripture says she was very beautiful, and a virgin.

When she came from the well with her jar filled with water, the servant ran to meet her and said, “Please let me drink a little water from your jar.”

She said, “Drink, my lord” and she quickly gave him a drink.

When he finished drinking she said, “I will draw also for your camels until they have finished drinking.”

So she emptied her jar into the drinking trough and ran back to the well for some more, and she drew enough water for all ten of his camels ().

What a girl she was—beautiful, vivacious, friendly, outgoing, unselfish, and energetic.

And when the servant found out that she was the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother, he bowed his head and worshiped the Lord: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His lovingkindness and His truth toward my master; as for me, the Lord has guided me in the way to the house of my master’s brothers” ().

It becomes obvious from the outset of this story that God is the real matchmaker in the marriage.

When the servant related to Rebekah’s family the indications of God’s guidance, her brother and her father agreed.

“The matter comes from the Lord,” they said ().

No matter what kinds of problems a marriage may encounter, they will be easier to solve if both husband and wife have a settled assurance that God has brought them together.

Difficulties can be overcome without it, and must be if God is to be glorified.

But the nagging notion that they married out of the will of God will make them less than enthusiastic about working at their relationship with self-sacrificing diligence.

Rebekah faced an immense decision in her life—leaving the home and family she would never see again, traveling nearly five hundred miles on camelback with a total stranger, to marry a man she had never met.

Her family called her in and said, “Will you go with this man?”

And she said, “I will go” ().

It was her assurance of God’s sovereign direction that motivated her decision, and it revealed her courage and trust.

Certainly the hours of travel were filled with talk of Isaac.

The old servant described him honestly and completely.

Isaac was an unassuming, mild-mannered, peace-loving man.

He would go to any lengths to avoid a fight (cf.

).

He was also a meditative man, not a quick thinker, but rather quiet and reserved.

He was not the great man his father was, but he was a good man, with a steadfast faith in God and a sense of divine mission.

He knew that through his seed God would bring spiritual blessing to the whole earth ().

He was different from the radiant, quick-witted Rebekah—far different.

But the experts tell us that opposites attract.

And Rebekah could feel her heart being drawn to this one whom she would soon meet and give herself to in marriage.

Isaac was out in the field meditating at evening time when the camel caravan approached carrying his precious cargo.

Rebekah dismounted from the camel when she saw Isaac, and covered herself with a veil as the custom was.

After he had heard all the exciting details of the eventful trip and the providential guidance that had found him a bride, we read, “Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and he took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her; thus Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death” ().

It was a tender beginning.

But somewhere along the way, this marriage began to sour.

Look, secondly, at the tragic decline in their relationship.

We are not absolutely certain what the problem was.

It certainly was not lack of love, for Isaac truly loved Rebekah, and unlike some husbands, he openly showed it.

About forty years after they were married he was seen tenderly caressing her in public ().

That might lead us to believe that they had a good physical relationship.

And that is important to a marriage.

But a husband and wife cannot spend all their time in bed.

They must also build a deep and intimate communion of soul and spirit.

They must honestly share what is going on inside of them, what they are thinking and feeling.

And there is not much evidence that Isaac and Rebekah did that.

One problem may have been their lack of children.

Isaac could have resented that and yet not ever admitted it.

Having children was far more important in that day than it is today, and they tried for about twenty years without success.

Much bitterness can build inside of a person in twenty years.

But Isaac finally turned to the right place with his problem.

“And Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived” ().

Having babies does not solve problems, however.

The twins who would soon be born were only going to agitate a problem that already existed in their relationship.

It seems to have been a problem of communication.

Rebekah with her bubbling personality loved to talk.

Isaac with his retiring personality preferred solitude and silence.

He was so hard to talk to.

They shared less and less with each other through those years.

And Rebekah’s bitterness grew because of that lack of communion and companionship for which every woman longs.

Her voice probably took on a caustic tone.

Her face may have developed lines of disgust and disdain.

And her scornful glances and spiteful comments only drove Isaac farther from her to find his precious peace.