Seeking the Bride of Christ

This message is one of the Times Square Pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing to World Challenge, P.O. Box 260, Lindale, Texas 75771 or calling 214-963-8626.

None of these messages are copyrighted and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to your friends. Let's bow in a word of prayer. Lord, tonight as we open our hearts to your word, I pray that you would strengthen me tonight.

As we approach your word, Lord, in the natural we feel insufficient, we feel weak. And oh Lord, unless you bring it alive to our hearts, unless the Holy Spirit anoints it, it's only the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life. We thank you for the letter, but we thank you for the spirit as well.

And make it sharp tonight. And Lord, we lift up a request that came during our singing, a brother that met me here. I lift up this particular need of someone who has just gone to the hospital in need of prayer right now.

And I lift this need up to you, Lord. You know what it is, an emergency need, and we lift it up to you tonight. Bless, even as we pray for many needs tonight, we pray for that particular one as well.

But Lord, meet the needs around this altar as well. Meet us around the communion table. Have your way in this meeting.

Lord, only you know the needs that are represented. Only you know the hearts of people here tonight and those that need you. And so take the word, Lord, and let it be sown on good ground.

In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Testing.

Amen. Okay. Now, the story of Abraham's servant seeking a bride for his son Isaac is a picture of the Holy Spirit calling out the church as a bride adorned for her husband.

Listen to 2 Corinthians 11 and 2. It says, I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promise you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you a pure virgin to him. Now, anyone with Holy Ghost discernment today, anyone with just a measure of Holy Ghost discernment, knows that we are approaching the midnight hour.

And it is that hour, according to Matthew 25 and 6, that there was a shout. A shout went out. Behold, the bridegroom come out to meet him.

And what we do, what we're simply doing here in every meeting, is we're here as ministers in every service, we're shouting it out. Behold, the bridegroom come out to meet him. That's the message here at Times Square Church.

Now, the call is only directed to virgins, only to the pure in heart. None other need go out. None other are permitted to go out.

None other will go out to meet the bride. To meet the bridegroom. He is not looking for compromisers.

He's not looking for cheats. He's not looking for, if you'll pardon the expression, he's not looking for spiritual fornicators or the impure. Isaiah 62 and 5 says, For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you.

And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you. Now, what a wonderful picture of Christ seeking a bride is portrayed for us here in chapter 24 of Genesis. It's probably a richer chapter, has not been written at least in the historical books, as far as I'm concerned.

It stands out like a gem among all Old Testament writings. Now, here's a story in brief. We read just parts of it.

Abraham asked his old and trusted servant, we believe it was Eliezer. He was actually, he was a servant, but he was a manager of servants. He was his household manager.

And he sent him on a very unique mission. And that was to seek a bride for his 30-year-old son Isaac, the son of promise. Now, Abraham asked Eliezer to swear by a very unusual oath that this bride will be a homie.

Now, a homie simply means somebody from a hometown. In other words, Eliezer, he said, you are not to find a wife among the Canaanite hussies. You're to go back to my own homeland, and you're to find a local girl, a neighborhood girl, as it were.

And so the oath was made by Eliezer placing his hand on Abraham's thigh and swearing or agreeing to the mission and to the terms of it. And so Eliezer goes with 10 camels. Remember that, 10 camel loads, a caravan load.

He goes and he prays for success. He made a very long journey. And he arrives back in Mesopotamia, Iraq.

And there he asked the Lord to show him by a certain sign that he might find the woman of divine choice. And he did. He found her, and she made herself known by a certain mannerisms, a certain actions, which we'll look into.

And so he finds her. He goes to her home and is well received. And then Eliezer lays out the marriage proposal in behalf of his master.

And the young girl, Rebecca, says, I will before she says, I do. In other words, she said, I will go. I will accept.

And so she leaves her home. She leaves her family. She leaves her country.

And she goes to her unknown but her already loved husband-to-be, Isaac. Now parents, if you're looking for a husband for your young daughter, you should be as fortunate as Eliezer was on his mission. And young woman, if you're waiting, you should be as fortunate to find an Eliezer at the water fountain at your office someday who is on a similar mission.

But anybody who reads the entire 24th chapter of Genesis has to agree that there is no sweeter chapter in all of the Old Testament. The story is filled with rich spiritual meaning and interpretation. First of all, Isaac is a type of Christ.

Flip back a few chapters and let's read it in the 22nd chapter of Genesis. I was about to say, and you're very familiar with this, and all we pastors, we say this all the time. And I realize that we shouldn't say that because we've got many, many new people here.

And you're probably not familiar with it. So we ought to look at it. Those of you that have known the Lord for many years, it is familiar to you.

But Genesis 22, verse 9, it says, And they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built the altar there, and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here I am. And he said, do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him.

For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.

And so here we see Isaac, the son and a figure, offered up and received again from the dead. And in like manner, after the resurrection of Christ, and in the book of Acts, we see the gathering of the bride from then until now. Just as Isaac was the type of Christ, and then Abraham had him go out and seek a bride, after his resurrection, as it were, as he is a type of the death and resurrection of Christ.

So today, that is what Christ is doing. He is seeking out his bride. And Rebecca is a type then of the church.

The pure virgin that God is calling out as a bride for Christ. Look at verse 26 and 27 of chapter 24. After Eliezer had discovered Rebecca, after he had seen and it had been confirmed by her actions that this was indeed the one, look what he does.

It says, on the man, verse 26, then the man, this is Eliezer, then the man bowed low and worshiped the Lord. And he said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his loving kindness and his truth towards my master. As for me, the Lord guided me in the way to the house of my master's brothers.

And so Eliezer rejoices over the found bride. Revelation 21 and 2 says, Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory. For the wedding of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready.

And just as Rebecca was made ready for Isaac, so God has a bride ready for the wedding of the Lamb. Hallelujah. I'm a part of that bride.

I hope you're a part of that bride. Now, the servant Eliezer is a type of the Holy Spirit who is seeking out and calling out the church to come and to be married to another. Keep your hand in Genesis 24 and flip over to John chapter 16.

And then I want you to flip right back and stay there in Genesis 24, but flip over to John 16. It says, But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own initiative. And that's what Eliezer was doing.

But whatsoever he hears, he will speak, and he will disclose to you what is to come. He shall glorify me, and he shall take of mine and disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are mine.

Therefore I said that he takes mine and will disclose it to you. Now, flip back again to Genesis 24 and note how Eliezer did exactly the same thing. He disclosed the purpose and the mission of the father Abraham regarding his son Isaac.

Verses, verse 32, it says, So the man entered the house. Then Laban unloaded the camels, and he gave straw and feed to the camels and water to wash his feet and the feet of the men who were with him. But when food was set before him to eat, he said, I will not eat until I have told my business.

And he said, Speak on. And he said, I am Abraham's servant, and the Lord has greatly blessed my master so that he has become rich, and he has given him flocks and herds and silver and gold and servants and maids and camels and donkeys. And so here again, Eliezer is a type of the Holy Spirit who is disclosing unto the household of Rebekah all that he has come to do, all that he represents Abraham.

He represents the father and he represents the son as well. And he tells about his master and his desire to take a bride unto himself. Now, with this as a background, let us look more closely at this story and learn some lessons on how the Holy Spirit is doing the very same thing in calling out a bride unto himself today.

First of all, the bride was to be a non-Canaanite and as such was to be a non-trafficker, a non-trafficker in the ways and wiles of this world. And I'll explain what that means. Look again at verses 2 and 3. And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he owned, Please place your hand under my thigh and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I live.

Now, follow me carefully. The Canaanites are a type of the world. It's a type of worldliness.

And the bride must not be of this world nor its system, or of its spirit, or of its language, or of its practices, or of its lifestyle. Now the word Canaanite is interesting. It means trafficker.

Trafficker, or really what it means, the Canaanites were trades people. They were business people. They were trafficker in goods.

And that word is very, very interesting when you apply it spiritually because most of the time we're used to the word trafficker. It's more familiar to me today because we hear much in the news today about drug trafficking, as in a pusher. A trafficker is someone who makes a business of sin.

And a Canaanite trafficker trafficked in iniquity and lived in and by the wiles or the intelligence of the devil. And you see the church, the bride of Christ, must not buy. It must not beg.

It must not borrow from a Canaanite trafficker of an ungodly lifestyle. In other words, treat the world and treat sin like you would drugs. Don't buy the stuff that is being pushed by friend or by foe because you cannot be a part of the bride of Christ.

You cannot claim membership in the true church of Jesus Christ if you have not come out of being involved in Canaanite trafficking. You see, there are those today who are a part of drug trafficking. By that I mean drug buying.

And they fall into several categories. And I've been working with drug addicts for a long enough time, a number of years, to know that drug addicts fall into different categories. People who traffic in drugs.

I'm not just saying the pusher, but the people who buy it, the people who use it. We would identify them as being a part of the drug trafficking. And I'm familiar with the fact that there are those who fall into various categories as far as that trafficking is concerned.

And those who are trafficking in worldly indulgences also fall into similar categories. For example, there is the hardcore, strung out, totally hooked drug addict who is consumed by his addiction every waking day. The first thing in his mind in the morning is drugs.

Every waking day, everywhere he turns, everything he thinks about all day long. He is a junkie. He is strung out.

He's hardcore. And there are those who are a part of this Canaanite lifestyle. They're not drug addicts necessarily, but they love this world just like a hooked drug addict.

They're hardcore traffickers in sin. They're consumed by their sin. And whether you're hooked on heroin or crack or cocaine or it's just that you have a love for this world, it's all the same in God's eyes.

You may never shoot a needle in your body, but if you shoot sin in any form like a heroin addict, then you're hooked and you need deliverance. And let me ask you tonight, are you a sin junkie? There are some people that come in here are literally sin junkies. They are totally consumed by it.

I remember I was preaching in a service one time and I ministered. I showed a film, in fact, on the drug problem and depicting the whole drug scene and what drug addicts go through and how some of them were saved. And I ministered and after the service, I was rolling up the film.

I was rewinding it and a man came up to talk to me and a very interesting conversation. A well-dressed man. And he told me he loved the film.

He commended me for the good work the ministry was doing and so forth. And the reason he liked the film is that he compared himself to the drug addicts on that film and he felt very good about himself. And I got to the feeling and very quickly I realized this man didn't know the Lord.

And this man was a very self-righteous man. And this man was just caught up in his own self-interest. But here he was, he compared himself with the drug addicts and he felt he came off very, very good.

And yet he was no different at all. In fact, he was worse because he couldn't see it. And finally, after he told me what a good man he was, I finally had enough of it and I said, Sir, pardon me, but do you know that it's possible to be good but to be good for nothing? And he said, pardon me? I said, well, the Bible says that our goodness is as filthy rags.

And you see, here this man was just as much engrossed in his own self-interest. He was just as much a Canaanite trafficker as any heroin addict, but he was blind to see it. He was totally hooked by it.

And you cannot be in the Bride of Christ if you're a sin junkie. But there's another category of drug trafficker. That's the drug abuser.

Technically, he or she is not an addict in a technical sense. They're not a junkie. But one thing characterizes the drug abuser.

No matter how many days they stay clean from it, they always go back. They're never totally clean. They always go back.

And there are many so-called Christians just like that. And in fact, they may have fooled themselves that they're a part of the Bride of Christ, but they're not. They are frequently clean, but they always go back.

They're in and out of the church. I asked one young man one day, I said, are you saved? He said, no, not today. No, not today.

And you know, it grieves me because I think we may have some people like that here at our altars who think that they can treat this like a drug habit or be a drug user and say, oh yes, I serve the Lord, but always, always going back. And then there's the drug user. This is the weekender, the occasional user.

You look at them, you'd never know. They always manage to keep their drug use limited to dips and to dabs. And so there are Canaanite traffickers in worldliness and iniquity who fit the same description.

They're always slipping off now and again. An occasional high now and then. And the sad part is that they think nothing of it.

Now remember, I'm not just talking about drugs. I'm talking about trafficking in Canaan. I'm talking about trafficking in the world.

There was a fellow at the altar a week ago Friday night. He came to the altar. And then afterwards, he was back at the tape table and my wife was there and overheard this.

And he asked a lady, he said, I need a dollar. And so she looked at him and out of the goodness of her heart, she began to pull out a dollar. He said, man, I need a beer.

And the lady looked at him and said, Mike, weren't you just at the altar? And he said, yes. She said, shame on you. He said, oh, I mean, I'm going to go get a sandwich.

I'm going to go get a sandwich. Well, you know, there are people that are like that. You can't traffic in Christianity and in the life of a Canaanite at the same time.

Abraham made Eliezer's mission very clear. He said, you shall not take a wife from my son from the Canaanites. And there will be no one in the bride of Christ who is either hooked or is an abuser or just an occasional user of sin.

The Lord says you've got to go and take somebody a non-Canaanite, not of this world. And then secondly, there is also a warning to the church. A very powerful warning in this chapter.

It says this, do not try to seek a bride by taking the son to Canaan. Or I mean, a son from among the Canaanites. And do not take the son back there.

Look at verse 4 and 5. And the servant said to him, suppose the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land. Should I take your son back to the land from where you came? Then Abraham said, beware lest you take my son back there. And again, the second time, the servant was still worried about the same thing.

And the second time again, Abraham gave the warning and said, no, you shall not take my son back there. Now here is a picture and please follow it. Here is a picture of the evangelist, the pastor, the musician, and the church in its zeal to call out a bride for the church.

Keeps looking for a way to make the gospel acceptable. The servant reasons, suppose the woman is not willing to accept the conditions that I lay out, which basically are the same conditions of the gospel. Suppose she is not willing to come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and leave all behind and come to the bridegroom.

Maybe what we need to do is to take Isaac back there and make him acceptable. Maybe we'll teach him how to sing a few songs like they sing back then. Maybe we'll teach him how to talk cool.

Maybe we'll teach him how to lure the bride back. And Abraham says, no, you cannot take the son, you cannot take Isaac back there. Beware lest you take my son back there.

There can be no compromise. You see the son, listen to me, the son does not accommodate himself to the favor of the bride. The servant must go and lay out the conditions and the bride must cross over the border and into the domain of the bridegroom.

And the church has too many servants who take my son back there for fear of the rejection of the gospel. And the philosophy, for example, behind rock music, the philosophy behind rock music in the church is that we have to take the son to the unsaved with the music of the Canaanites or the music of the land, otherwise they will not come back to the land. We've got to give them something to, I hear this all the time, we've got to give them something to identify with.

I remember some people told me about some young people had a coffee house ministry. He said, my goodness, he said, they pack it out every night. He said, what they do is they take the popular songs and they kind of rewrite them and they throw a few Christian terms in it.

And this is what they said, we kind of sneak Jesus up on them. And they wanted my reaction because they knew we were involved in the same type of ministry and I told them, we don't bring Jesus in the back door, we bring him in the front door. And today the church has tried to be so relevant that they have become irrelevant.

And the rejection of the gospel leads many to package it to make it more acceptable. You know, in Mark the sixth chapter, Jesus went back to his hometown, his own synagogue, and he went on the Sabbath day and as their custom was, they asked him to read the scripture. And when he began to read the scripture, they all said to themselves, isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't this the son of Joseph and Mary? And they were all thrilled because, hey, he's one of us.

He's just like us. And everything was fine until he began to identify himself as the son of God. And he began to preach the message and they cut him off.

You see, if the son had come to them as one of them on their terms, that would have been acceptable to them. But they were unwilling to come to him on his terms as the son of the living God. And this is what it says, that when they finally heard the word, they were offended.

And I've seen young preachers go through the same thing. I've seen young evangelists, I've seen young pastors go through the same thing. Just as Eliezer was word and says, suppose they don't receive me.

Suppose they will not, the bride will not accept the terms. And so now they've got to do something to make it more acceptable. It says there in the synagogue that they took offense at Jesus.

And you know what that means literally? They saw in him that of which they disapproved and kept them from acknowledging him. Meaning on his terms. When I was studying this the last few days, right in the middle of it all, I got a telephone call from a young evangelist.

And God bless him, his heart, he called me three or four times. He wanted my advice on a certain thing that he was getting involved in. And I told him, I told him, I said, this does not bear witness with me.

I said, I don't believe it's scriptural, it's sensationalism. I said, you're going to hurt yourself, you're going to hurt your ministry. And I must have said it to him three times in three different calls.

But I kept searching and searching and saying, why is this man doing this? Why would he resort to this? He's had a ministry all over the world and mission field and God has blessed him. And I couldn't understand it, I kept searching and finally it came out. He said, well, he said, you know, today you've got to do something.

He said, my crowds are getting smaller in my meetings. The response is very slow. He said, you've got to do something to shake them up.

And you know what he was doing? He was going through the same thing Eliezer was. Suppose that she will not accept it. And he was trying to accommodate himself to the flesh.

And today we've taken the gospel and we've conformed it to an American middle class values of peace and prosperity. No longer is it necessary to come out from among them and be you separate, saith the Lord. There is now a Canaanite gospel that says, oh, you don't have to leave Canaan.

You can have all this and Jesus too. And Isaac now parades the streets as a friend of sinners who just loves them the way they are. There was an article in Fortune Magazine, editorial Fortune Magazine.

And this is what it said. And I want to tell you I've read some editorials in newspapers today that have had more discernment and more insight and have been more prophetic than I've heard from many Christian magazines that I get. And here's a good one from Fortune Magazine.

It says, in days like these that we of the world need to hear a word from the Lord, we look to the church for the word and all we hear is the echo of our own voice. Amen to that. In other words, tell me what you want to hear and I'll give it to you.

But Abraham says, no you must not take my son back there. My son cannot be accommodated to the bride. The bride must come back to the son.

Hallelujah. But today no wonder when the count is taken of how many people consider themselves born again. The figures are very large.

But the figures are false because the gospel is false. We have Canaanite Christianity. Believers who traffic in worldly living while preachers tell them how the son has come to marry them just the way they are.

You see nothing that is not of Christ can be united to him. Beware lest you take my son back there. Now thirdly, note the method that the servant used to seek a bride for the master.

Look at verse 10. This blesses me. It says, then the servant took ten camel ten camels from the camels of his master and set out with a variety of good things of his masters in his hand.

And the servant took ten camels. Now I was doing a little study on camels and didn't get into it too much. Other than the fact that I noted that camels in that day were were very high value.

The average person would carry his goods maybe on a donkey which was a normal beast of burden but a donkey would carry a very small load but a camel was could carry a very very large load. And camels were a sign of a wealthy man. And here Eliezer makes a trip with ten camels.

I mean that's like me coming to your house with an entourage of ten, you know with ten Mercedes. Or with ten you know large semis with you know full of goods. And he took something representing all of his wealth.

And when it says a variety of good things in his master's hand that meant that he took out samples of all that he had and he took it back with him. In verse 35, look at verse 35. It says the servant presented himself to Rebekah's household with these words and the Lord has greatly blessed, verse 35, the Lord has greatly blessed my master so that he has become rich and he has given him flocks and herds and silver and gold and servants and maids and camels and donkeys.

Now you see all of those things were representative of all the riches that Abraham possessed which Isaac in turn inherited and which Rebekah would share in as well. And you see the Holy Spirit is still seeking out a bride in the same way. Listen to John 16, 14 again.

It says all things that the Father has are mine therefore I said that he takes of mine and will disclose it to you. Now the coincidence of these words is very instructive and interesting. It was in the telling of Isaac that he sought to attract the heart of Rebekah and it is by the telling of Jesus that the Holy Spirit seeks to draw poor sinners away from the world and its sin and its folly and into the blessed union with Christ he takes of mine and he shows it unto you.

And you see the Holy Spirit comes, the Holy Spirit comes calling on us with the promise of the riches of the Father and of the Son at his disposal, hallelujah. And these riches and spiritual blessings they're spiritual, they're not material things. Of course they were material here but that was only representative of the spiritual things that the Holy Spirit comes and offers unto us.

And I was thinking about some of them, in fact you don't need to turn to but you know that they're contained in Ephesians the first chapter. In Ephesians the first chapter it says that he has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in high places in Christ Jesus. And when the Holy Spirit comes he begins to reveal and he seeks to woo us unto himself with all of these things.

For example, it says, one of the first things it says there in Ephesians chapter 1 is that he chose us he chose us in him before the foundations of the world. And I was reading that and thinking about that today and it blessed my socks off. And do you know why? That he chose me before the foundation of the world.

You know what that means? That he chose me before there was a Lucifer. He chose me before Adam fell and he knew that Adam was going to sin and all of us was going to be like him. But before any of that happened when he said we are chosen in him before the foundation of the earth, it means that he has first claim, he has prior claim over you and I. Hallelujah.

That's what it means. And when he comes calling he says to you yes you may be bound in sin, you may think that you can't get free, you may think that you don't belong to God but consider that you were chosen in him before the foundations of the earth. Hallelujah.

Remember it said he came calling with a variety of good things in the masters, of his masters in his hands and that's just one of them. And then the next one it goes on and it says he predestined us to be to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. Do you ever feel homeless? Do you ever feel family-less? Well I want you to know that Jesus took adoption papers out on you.

Hallelujah. You belong to him. You are chosen in him before the foundation of the earth to be adopted as a son.

Hallelujah. Into the family of God. He comes calling to you with that.

And then it goes on, there's another one, it says the forgiveness of sins, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace and I like how he links our trespasses with his riches because he knew that many of you and many of us would have an awful lot of trespasses but he said for every trespass there is enough forgiveness according to the riches of his grace that you can draw upon. Hallelujah. That where sin abounds grace doth much more abound.

And that's another one of the good things that he comes calling upon you with and says here, here I am, this is what I have to offer you. And then it goes on and it's the mystery of his will. The mystery of his will so that you don't have to have one single doubt about where you stand in the Lord.

Listen, the only religion on the face of the earth that gives you such blessed assurance is the message of Jesus Christ, the message of Christianity. Every other one always leaves you in the dark because you have to keep working at it. But the Lord says he reveals to you the mystery of his will so that you can know and be assured beyond any shadow of a doubt.

Hallelujah. I told the story illustration one time over town hall I'll tell it to you again. A young convert came up to me and he said brother Don he said I'm having I'm having difficulties he said I'm having these flashes of doubt that go through my mind all the time about my salvation.

And he was worried that this was strange. I said listen this is not strange. This is very normal.

The devil will come and lie to you and tell you you're a phony or try to rob the word of you and you'll have these flashes of doubt. And I said the longer you stay in the Lord the weaker those flashes get. Because he has come to make known the mystery of his will.

He's come to make known to you where you stand in him. That you are justified by faith. That you stand free and forgiven before him.

And you walk in the word. And the more you walk in the word I said those flashes will get weaker and weaker and weaker. And I was thinking about that when I left that fella thinking about his flashes of doubt I started to laugh.

And I began to think about agnostics and atheists who have flashes of faith. Can you imagine a man who thinks he's got it all together? He thinks he knows it all and all of a sudden he hears a testimony or a witness from you or somebody says something and something begins to flash through his mind that says maybe it's real. Maybe it's real.

Maybe it's real. Maybe there's a heaven. Maybe there is a hell.

Maybe you're maybe it's all going to happen what they say is happening. Think of the confusion that he would go through. But my friend thank God that you and I don't have to worry about flashes of doubt or flashes of faith that the Lord can make known to you the mystery of his will.

Hallelujah. So that you know that you know that you know that you know who you are in him. Hallelujah.

He comes calling. He comes calling with that. And then it says we're sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise that he will present you faultless unto the throne of his grace.

Hallelujah. And let me tell you when the Holy Spirit came calling on me he came with 10 camel loads. With 10 camel loads.

That means that that's just the earnest of his inheritance. That was just a representation of all that he had. And he says come on there's more where that came from.

Hallelujah. There's more where that came from. Glory to God.

Amen. Or like the father said you know try it. Try Jesus for 30 days and if you're not satisfied he'll give you a return on your miseries.

Jesus says come on follow me. Follow the camels. There's more where this came from.

Hallelujah. But then I want you to notice something that the bride responded by love not by covetousness. When Eliezer went to the household of Rebekah I want you to note the contrast between Laban and Rebekah.

Look at verses 29 and 30 if you will. It says now Rebekah had a brother whose name was Laban and Laban ran outside to the man at the spring. And it came about when he saw the ring and the bracelets and the sister's wrist and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister saying this is what the man said to me.

He said to the man behold he was standing by the camels at the and behold he was standing by the camels at the spring and he said come in. Come in blessed of the Lord. Why do you stand outside since I have prepared the house and a place for the camels.

Now doesn't Eliezer sound terrific? Yeah he says come on in blessed of the Lord. He sounds like a brother in Christ. But you see verse 30 tells us the reason for Laban's Christian enthusiasm.

And it came about when he saw the ring and the bracelets on his sister's wrist he said to himself this is my kind of man. This is my kind of religion. Oh my goodness I found a gospel that I can believe in now.

I found a gospel that I just love because he saw the bracelets and let me tell you my friend there's all kinds of people today are following that kind of gospel. They say come in blessed of the Lord. And my friend when you open your heart to that then you get a gospel of covetousness.

Laban had daughter Bill's written in his heart. He saw all those camels. He wasn't a dummy and yet he was a dummy.

He saw all those camels and he said man yeah this is it. This is wonderful. Come in blessed of the Lord.

I want to know more about your master. I want to know more about your religion. And you see Laban saw the wedding arrangement based on the covetousness of his own heart.

Isaac represented to him a religion of wealth. A personal advancement and material blessing. And my friend that's the way Christ is preached.

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And she went and she gave a drink to Eleazar, and then she went on and she fed the camels, not because of the covetousness of her heart, but it was a sign of her own self-emptying. She took her own water jug that she had come to draw water for. She came and she emptied it all out into the trough for the camels to drink, and then she went back to the well and she got more water, and I don't know, I bet those camels had big tanks.

And she emptied it all, a sign of self-emptying, of emptying out her own self-interest, a sign really of repentance. And Eleazar said, that's the bride, that's the one, that's the one who qualifies. That was the heart of repentance.

That was the heart of one who belongs in the bride of Christ. And it was then, and only then, that he then took out the bracelets and he gave it to her after there was a sign of true humility and true repentance. Hallelujah.

And then finally, let me close with this, the response of the bride. The Holy Spirit is looking for a people who will say, as Rebekah said, I will go. I will go.

But you know, there's one, she made the response, but then Laban and the family interjected one thing. Verse 55, excuse me, let me find the verse where she said, I will go. I've got to find that one first.

Verse 58, and then they called Rebekah and said to her, will you go with this man? And she said, I will go. I will go. But back up to verse 55, and then her brother and her mother said, let the girl stay with us a few days, say ten.

Afterward she may go. Afterward she may go. My friend, there is a lot, and I want you to see this, and I'm going to close with this.

There is a last day call going out in this hour. Behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him. The Holy Spirit is calling out a bride.

But along with this, there comes a parallel call, and this is what it is. It's in verse 55. Let the girl stay with us a few days, say ten, and afterward she may go.

You see, such a delay would have been fatal. All sorts of temptations, all sorts of distractions would have come to her during that delay, and I want you to get the picture. Here is ten camels waiting outside.

They're ready to go. They're ready to return to take Rebekah back to Isaac. They're ready.

They're kicking their engines. If you pardon the expression, their engines are roaring, and Eliezer is ready. He's found.

She's made the response, and always when you make a response, always when you say, yes, I'll go, I will accept the conditions, always there will come a voice along to say to you, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Hold on just a bit.

Stick around. Just give me ten more days. The enemy always comes and says, give me ten more days.

You see, the ten camels represented all that she was to enter in, all the inheritance in Christ that she was to enter into. But the ten days represented where she was. It represented the life that she was already in, and it's as if the enemy came to her and said to her, now wait a minute.

You haven't got all that there is to have in this life. You deserve, what, ten more days. You deserve just a little bit more time.

Then you can go. But of course, Eliezer said, no, oh no. I want a decision right now because he knew that in ten days, she would get settled down.

The enemy would come in and would distract her, and she might never go back. And my friend, I feel tonight that that's exactly where some of you are. The Holy Spirit is calling you unto him.

He's calling you out to be a part of the bride, and he says, do it uncompromisingly. And you've heard the message very clear. And just about the time you hear it, the devil comes along and says to you, hold on just a minute.

Hold on just a minute. Don't you deserve one more day? Don't you deserve, you see, the ten days represented fulfillment. It represented the things in this life, and the enemy will come and say to you, oh hold on.

Just, you know, take care of this. Feed the flesh a little bit longer. Take care of the flesh a little bit longer, and then you can go to be with a bride.

And my friend, I want to tell you that that kind of delay can be fatal in your life. The Holy Spirit is calling you unto himself, and he says, will you go? Will you come, and will you be a part of the bride? Will your answer tonight be like Rebecca and say, I will go. Don't listen to the Laban's.

Don't listen to your family. Don't listen to anybody else that says, wait a minute. Hold on.

Enjoy a little bit more. I've had people literally tell me and said, oh yes, you're right. You're right.

It's true. Everything you say is true, but I'm not ready yet. I'm not ready yet.

I want to experience this. I want to do this. Give me ten more days, and my friend, you might die in those ten days.

And for some of you, you're living at the ninth day, and there's still time for you to heed the call of the Holy Spirit, the call of Eliezer says, come, come, come. The Father, the Son is waiting for you, and oh, I love that at the end. Let me read it again, that last, the very last, that very last, it says, and then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and he took Rebecca, and she became his wife, and he loved her.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Wasn't the camels, it wasn't the camels.

No, that was what it was all about right there. He loved her. Oh, thank God for his love for us tonight.

Wants to bring you into his tent. Hallelujah. Let's bow in a word of prayer.

Lord, we thank you. We thank you how we see you, service after service, calling out your bride. Hallelujah.

Lord, let there be no delay tonight. There are some that are weighing. They've heard the call.

They've heard the call to come. They've even said they would, but there's been another call that's delayed them, and Lord, I pray that there'll be no delay, that they'll surrender everything to you, and accept every condition that you've laid down, that they'll forsake everything. They'll not be as the one who said, oh, let me go.

I bought a field. Another who said, let me go bury my father. But no, you said, no, follow me.

Let the dead bury the dead. It's time to follow me now. Time to follow me now.

Lord, bring, in this altar tonight, those whom you're calling unto yourself. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand together.

He that's within the world. I said, go. Well, he went in the chapel, said a word of prayer, went off and came back and told me this story.

He said, Brother Down, when I got to my neighborhood, got off the subway and walked down the street very carefully, and under a lot of