Old Testament 14 Patriarchal Stage 4 Liberty Home Bible Institute HL Willmington

In this transcription, the speaker discusses the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis chapter 19. They mention the angels warning Lot and his family to escape before the city is destroyed. The speaker also discusses the use of brimstone as a symbol of punishment and the possible explanation for Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt. They then discuss the incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughters. The speaker addresses the criticism of these passages and explains that the Bible records both honorable and degrading actions of its characters. They also make the point that the Bible is not a book that man could write or would write if given the chance. The speaker then briefly discusses Abraham's carnality and celebration and mentions the argument between Sarah and Hagar. Finally, they discuss Abraham's test on Mount Moriah, commonly known as the sacrifice of Isaac. This is number 14 in a series of 80 Old Testament tapes, and we're finishing up Genesis chapter 19, the destruction of Sodom. In verse 17 we read of the angels there, and it came to pass when they, the angels, had brought them, here we have Lot and his wife and two unmarried daughters, they brought them forth abroad, that they said, Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain, escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. And we read that that's exactly what happened, that God does destroy the city, and in verse 23, the sun was risen upon the earth when Lot actually left the city. That means that this was during the sunrise, perhaps 6, 7 o'clock in the morning, maybe earlier than that. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And we're not sure where Gomorrah was located, but apparently that had the same sexual problem, it was a twin city along with Sodom, and they were in near proximity, the one with the other. So that means that he rains fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven. Brimstone, of course, in the Bible is often used to denote punishment and destruction. And this brimstone, some feel, or at least that God used this, that this is a reference to sulfur, because we are told in Genesis chapter 14 that the surrounding areas of Sodom was full of slime pits, and some believe that this could have been asphalt pits. At any rate, in verse 32 we're told, or the next few verses actually, in verse 26 rather, but that his wife looked back from behind him and she became a pillar of salt. Now the agnostic has looked at that and ridiculed it for years, and he says, what do we have here? Let's record a woman who turned into a 110-pound sack of mortal salt. Well, it could have been that, however, some believe that this simply means she was encrusted by the flying, salty, sulfurous-like material that doubtless was raining upon all the ground around from the city of Sodom. At any rate, whether God used a special miracle here, we do know that she was destroyed and apparently she went out into eternity without Christ. And in verse 27, Abraham, he's watching from a safe distance now, got up early in the morning to a place where he stood before the Lord, and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain, and behold, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. Right now, the last few verses in chapter 19 are certainly sordid verses, and they refer to the incestuous relationship between Lot and his two daughters. In verse 30, we find them going to a cave in a mountain there, and they take refuge in this cave, and here I think the ultimate is shown, as we said before, the high cost of low living. Because Lot's daughters, fearing they will never marry, all the boys from Sodom are dead now and they'll grow up and become old women without being married now, fearing they will never get married, they get their own father drunk and they have sexual relations with him while he's drunk. The oldest daughter then becomes impregnated by her father and she has a boy and she names her son Moab, and he becomes the father of the Moabites, of course, and then the younger daughter does the same and she finds herself with child and then she bears a baby into the world, also a boy, and calls his name Ben-Ammi, and he becomes then the father of the Ammonites. And, by the way, both nations, the Moabites and the Ammonites, would later cause Israel much heartache. Some have read this and said, the Bible is a dirty book. Well, the Bible is certainly not a dirty book, but the Bible does contain some pretty dirty, sad passages, the reason being, and we'll see this so often in the Old Testament and indeed even in the New Testament, especially the Old Testament, the reason being, students, the Bible is not an edited book. God tells it like it is. When his saints do those honorable and good and wholesome things, God records it. But when his saints, as well as sinners, do those things that are degrading and perverted, God records this, because God, in the common language of the day, tells it like it is. This is one of the great proofs, by the way, that the Bible is the Word of God. I'll make a statement here, and we'll certainly build upon this statement in many other chapters, and here's the statement. The Bible is, number one, not a book that man would write if he could, and secondly, not a book that man could write if he would. Let's take that second statement first and explain it. It's not a book that man could write if he would. Suppose man wanted to write the Bible. Apart from God, he couldn't. He wouldn't have the spiritual, the historical, and the scientific knowledge. He wouldn't have known what God did the first day and the second day and the third day, so he wouldn't have had the historical knowledge to do it, even though he wanted to. And then he certainly would not have had the prophetical knowledge, what God's going to do during the tribulation and the millennium, unless God had told him. So, number one, the Bible is not a book that man could write if he would. But listen to this now, neither is it a book that man would write if he could. Let's suppose that God would give him the historical and the scientific and the spiritual knowledge and know-how that he needed, and just say, now you write whatever kind of book you want to write, and we'll call it the Bible. Man would not have written it this way, even if he could have written it. He certainly would not have included, at least I would not have included, this passage. I would have bypassed it because I would not have wanted to downgrade, launch this way, or that is to say, go into the sort of details in the life of a sinning saint. But God, being the honest God that he is, tells it the way it is. All right, thus we have Abraham's compassion. Now in chapter 20, we have Abraham's carnality for the second time. If you remember back in Genesis 12, we have his carnality, and now we have it again, because for the second time, Abraham sins concerning his wife, and he does the same thing that he did years ago. This time, during a certain situation, he makes his way into the land of Philistia, and there he lies about his wife to a Philistine king. Years before, he had gone south and lied concerning Sarah to an Egyptian king, and remember we said once a person commits a sin, it's often easier for them to commit it the second time, and here he does this very same thing. That's why we've entitled this section His Carnality. All right, in spite of that, God still forgives him and uses him. The Bible and the Old Testament, if it teaches anything, it teaches the God of the second chance. All right, now in Genesis chapter 21, we find his celebration, because after many, many, many years of frustrated waiting, sometimes on the part of both Abraham and Sarah, God visits Sarah, as he had said. We read in verse 1, And the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken, for Sarah conceived, and there Abraham a son in his old age, here he is a hundred now, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. Remember in the chapter before this, in chapter 18 rather, God had said, I will return to thee at the time of life, in the spring, and you'll bear a son. He had said this concerning Sarah. And verse 3, Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bared to him, Isaac. The word Isaac in the Hebrew means laughter, and the reason that Isaac was named laughter is because of the laughter on the part of his parents before his birth. Remember we said that Abraham had laughed, and his laughter was the laughter of belief, and Sarah had laughed, and her laughter was the laughter of unbelief. And so they named the boy laughter, I suppose to remind them both of perhaps at times their own unfaithfulness, and the faithfulness of God. Can't you just imagine when Isaac has a stomachache as a baby, and he's really carrying on? And so Abraham's attempting to read the evening Hebron Post magazine or newspaper, and he cries out to Sarah in the kitchen, he says, Sarah, what in the world is laughter crying about tonight? And what a name, but what a boy he turned out to be. And we see his faith a little later on down the road. In verse 8, And the child grew, and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. And later on then in this chapter we find, and we won't go into it too much, I expect you as students to read these chapters, even though we do not have a chance to comment on all them, there is another argument between Sarah and Hagar. And this time the argument is a permanent one, because from this point on, Hagar and her son Ishmael leave the tent there in Hebron and go their way, and apparently they never get together again at this point. God will take care of Ishmael and also take care of Hagar. All right, in chapter 22, we find the next scene now in the life of Abraham, his Calvary. And it came to pass, the Bible says, after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and he said, Behold, here I am. Now in the book of James, chapter 1, verse 13, we're told that when a man is tempted, let him not say, I am tempted of God, for God tempts no man. And yet here it says, in Genesis 22, God did tempt Abraham. Now this is apparently a contradiction. Well of course it isn't, because you see the word tempt, as far as the language is concerned and as far as the meaning of the act itself, can have two meanings. Number one, it can mean to entice to do evil, or secondly, it can mean to test, to prove, with the idea of bettering something or someone. And here, certainly, it was not an enticement to do evil, but it was a test to make Abraham stronger. And I think, though, that every temptation probably carries this twofold meaning. The devil entices people to do evil, and God uses the same temptation as a test, the other side of the coin, to make them better, to show them they need to depend upon God. So he calls him, and he says, Abraham, and God answers, and in verse 2, he said, Take now thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of. I had my privilege to spend a number of weeks from time to time in Jerusalem, and there right inside the old walled city is that famous building, the Dome of the Rock, the Mosque of Omar, the Islamic temple. And inside that beautiful edifice is a huge, gigantic rock, and this is the Rock of Moriah, and this is a very sacred rock concerning the faiths of three great faiths, the Islamic faith and the Jewish faith and the Christian faith. The Islamic faith feel that Muhammad, when he went to heaven, made his way into the seventh heaven according to the Koran, the sacred book of the Islamic people, that he left the Rock of Moriah, that was his launching pad, and from there he went on into the seventh heaven. And the Jewish faith think it's a very sacred place, because they believe it was that spot where the Islamic temple is now, that Abraham offered up his son Isaac, and to many believers this becomes a sacred spot, too, because some believe that it was upon this rock that our Lord Jesus was crucified, not Gordon's Calvary, as many would believe, and of course we do not know where Christ was crucified, but there is a possibility that this rock well may have been the place years later where our Savior was crucified. So he says, get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, and of course Golgotha was a little hill outside the city of Jerusalem, and I think the typology here would be very significant if this were the very place where later on our Savior was crucified. But you go over to those mountains, God says, which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clad the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. And then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again unto you. God told him to offer his son up as a burnt offering. Now, just what did God tell him to do, really, what was involved here? Well, you see, the offering, the animal offering, had to be a male animal, had to be without blemish, and then it had to be offered voluntarily by the owner. It was killed, and then the blood was sprinkled, it was finely cut into pieces, and then washed and burned. And this was a terrible thing, and yet this is what God told Abraham to do. I don't know what was going through Abraham's mind, but in the book of Hebrews we're told that he concluded, in Hebrews chapter 11, that God would have to raise him again from the dead. He understood that God wanted him to kill him, but then he understood also that God will just have to raise him from the dead. Notice his faith in verse 5, he said, even though at this time he felt he would slay him in just a few hours, he said, I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. In other words, we'll come back again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son. Oh, how spiritual, how symbolic these words are, how reminiscent of that passage in the New Testament, when another father would lead his son up Mount Moriah, and he would literally lay the wood of the cross upon him. He laid the wood upon Isaac his son, and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and they went both of them together. Now, Isaac at this point does not know exactly what's involved or anything about what is involved here. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father? And Abraham said, Here am I, my son. And Isaac said, Dad, we've made a boo-boo here. He told the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And verse 8, oh, we can just empathize here the terrible agony in Abraham's heart. He must have said with tears streaming down his cheeks, with a broken soul. And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went, both of them together. I want to dwell on verse 7 for just a moment, though. Abraham leads his boy up the mountain, and his boy said, Where is the lamb? I would like to suggest to you at this time, students, that you may summarize the Bible through three statements in three different chapters concerning the lamb, summarize the entire Bible. In Genesis chapter 22, Isaac asks the question, Where is the lamb? In John chapter 1, John the Baptist says, Behold the lamb, the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And in Revelation, after all is said and done, chapter 5, the angels in heaven worship Christ, saying, Worthy is the lamb. These three statements. In Genesis 22, Where is the lamb? In John 1, Behold the lamb. And in Revelation 5, Worthy is the lamb. Then notice his statement. He says, My son, God will provide himself for a burnt offering. Now, this one sentence, I think, is also in itself a complete summary of the Bible. Theologically, we could read it in either of two following ways. We could say it means this, number one, God will provide for himself a lamb, that is, the lamb will come from God. Or we could read it this way, God will provide himself for a lamb, that is, the lamb offered will be God. Either way is correct, of course, for in the New Testament, both meanings come true. Notice that question, Where is the lamb? This question is still asked by a frightened and confused world today. Where is the lamb? Where do we look for our salvation? Now, the world asks the right question, but they look for the wrong thing. Where is the lamb? Well, some look for this lamb in various directions. The lamb of education, the lamb of good works, the lamb of the United Nations, the lamb of the World Council of Churches, the lamb of baptism, the lamb of church membership. But the salvation lamb can never be found in any of these. The heartbroken old patriarch softly answers this question, My son, God, will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. Well, Abraham then builds the altar and he binds his only son to it. This little statement, I think, speaks highly of Isaac, for he wasn't a small boy, as some have pictured it, but he's probably a full-grown man, and yet he willingly allows his old father to tie and bind him to a death altar. Then the Spirit of God records for us in verse 10, in dramatic phrases, this breathtaking action which now takes place on that windswept hill. We read, And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. However, of course, before he could do this, God stayed his hand. And verse 12, he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him. For now I know, of course, God knew that before, but now Abraham will know it, too. For now I know, and Abraham you do, too, that thou, fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And then a grateful Abraham obeys God, and he sacrifices the ram, and then he names this place Jehovah-Jireh. This title, Jehovah-Jireh, becomes now one of the great names for God in the Old Testament, and it literally means, The Lord will provide. And dear friends, I think we can, students, we can say today, The Lord has provided. Jehovah-Jireh. Before we're leaving this chapter, let us notice some striking similarities between Abraham the father and God the father. Remember, we've titled this chapter, Abraham's Calvary, and I think there's a similarity between God the father and Abraham the father. Number one, both had a beloved son. Abraham loved his son with all his heart, and God has a beloved son also. And both these sons were miraculously born. One was born when his mother was old and barren. The other was born to a virgin girl. Both had supernatural births. And both had willing sons, that is, sons that were willing to be offered up. Abraham's son allowed his old father to bind him to the altar. He willingly laid down his life, or was ready to lay down his life. And in the New Testament, God's son said this about himself, No man taketh my life from me. But I have power to lay it down and power to take it up again. And then, of course, both Abraham the father and God the father offered up their same, their sons, and possibly on the same spot. And then both received their sons back with great joy. Bible says, of course, that Abraham received his son back with joy and celebration. And then later we're told that when Jesus arose, that God gave him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father. And then, and we'll see this a little later on, both made careful preparations for their son's wedding. In Genesis 24, Abraham makes some very detailed, gives some very detailed instructions to his old servant concerning the marriage of his son. And in the New Testament, we have the story, of course, of God the father making preparation for the marriage of his son to the church. And so, in the Old Testament, we find the story of Jesus long before we come to Luke chapter 2 in the actual incarnation story. In fact, in the Gospel of John, on one occasion, our Lord said, Abraham saw my day and he rejoiced to see it. Now, Abraham, or Jesus, may have been referring to Genesis chapter 22 here. Now in Genesis chapter 23, we find Abraham's cave. We find here that Sarah, his beloved wife, after living to be 127 years of age, dies. You know, there are those today that would advocate the worship of Mary, but in the New Testament, it is the life of Sarah that is called to our attention. We are to consider Sarah and how she obeyed Abraham in the Old Testament. So the Gospel accounts and the epistles call our attention not to Mary, but to Sarah. And here, then, Abraham buys a cave at Machpelah for 400 pieces of silver, and he buries his beloved wife here. And then later on, when he dies, he will himself be laid here, and then Isaac is buried here, and Isaac's wife, Rebekah, and other Old Testament patriarchs all buried in this cave of Machpelah, somewhere in the immediate surrounding area of the city of Hebron. You can go over there today in Hebron, and there is a temple, and the priest there in the temple will show you, the Islamic priest will show you, that below this spot where you are standing is the actual burial ground of the cave of Machpelah. Whether it is or not, we do not know, but somewhere in that vicinity we find this cave. All right, I think that we can conclude this chapter in chapter 23. And in chapter 24, as Abraham's life begins to come to an end now, we have his next summary here, statement, Abraham's command. Let's read about it. And Abraham was old and well stricken in age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh. This was a way of sort of crossing my heart and hope to die. It was a pledge of truth. And we're not sure of the name of this servant. Many believe he was Eliezer, that God had spoken about somewhere, that Abraham had spoken about many years ago. You remember he asked God if God would allow Eliezer to become the promised heir. And Abraham now instructs Eliezer, or this servant, to go back to the land of Haran. Do you remember we said that when Abraham left the land of Ur of the Chaldees, instead of going to Palestine right away, he follows the Euphrates River for five, six hundred miles northwest, and he comes to the city of Haran, and he stays there for a while, and then God, of course, removed his father, Terah, and he moves on across the desert. Apparently later on, Abraham's brother had also moved from Ur of the Chaldees, apparently had also become a child of God, had moved into Haran. We don't know exactly all the details here. But now Abraham's brother and his family, friends, were living in Haran. And so Abraham realized that Isaac, his son, was old enough, now he was going to be married, and he did not want him to marry one of the girls in Canaan where Abraham was living, because the Canaanites, of course, were certainly the enemies of Abraham's faith. And so he sends his servant back to Haran, and he says, fetch my son, a wife from my own relatives there, and bring her back here, because I don't want my son to marry one of these pagan Canaanite, Canaanese girls. And in verse 7, we find that the, in verse 8 and 9, the servant agreeing to do this, and in verse 10, the servant took ten camels, the camels of his master, and departed, for all the goods of his master were in his hand. And he arose and went to Mesopotamia unto the city of Nahor. Now, Nahor, if you remember, was one of Abraham's brothers, so he was going to Haran, where Nahor lived. And he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water at the even, at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water. Now he bows in prayer, and he prays one of the most remarkable prayers in all the Bible, not only because of his great faith, but also because it was answered even before the prayer was finished. Now, notice what the prayer says. He says in verse 12, O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham. And he says, Behold, Lord, I stand here by the well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water, and let it come to pass that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink, and she will say, Drink, and I will give thee thy camel's drink also. Let the same be she that thou hast appointed for my servant Isaac, and thereby shall I know that thou hast shown kindness unto my master. He's saying, Lord, I'm an old man, and I don't know anything about picking out a wife for somebody else, and I may just pick out somebody that my master won't like at all, and so let me just sort of throw out the fleece here, and Lord, the girl that you want me to take back to Isaac, I'm asking that you have her come up to me and ask if I would like a drink of water, and not only if I would like a drink of water, but let her ask me if my camels would also like to drink. And so in verse 15, And it came to pass, before he had done speaking, even before he had finished praying, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah the wife of Nahor Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder, and the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her, and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up. And the servant ran to meet her, and said, and he asked her the question now, and he's hoping, oh, Lord, let her answer the way I prayed that she would answer, because she's so beautiful. Let me, he says, I pray thee, would you give me a little water of thy pitcher? And she said, Drink, my Lord. And she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. Well he's drinking now, and he's still thinking, oh, Lord, I, that's the first, she's passed the first part of the test, but she can still form the exam now. Let her say, by the way, would your camels like a drink? Now, the first request was rather easy to fulfill, because that didn't take much work on her part. She simply, here was a thirsty stranger, sure, anybody would give, in those days, would give in the desert there, hospitality was sometimes better than it is today, and it was just the common decent thing to give a person a drink of water. But now, for her to volunteer to provide water for the camels, that was another thing, because if you ever have a chance to visit Palestine, the Holy Land, and see camels being watered, you know that each camel can drink 8, 10, maybe 15 gallons of water at a time, and here he has 10 camels, we're told, and you multiply 10 times 15, you're talking about 150 gallons, and they didn't turn on a faucet or a garden hose, and this meant that she would have to work 3 or 4 hours, probably a hard work, at least several hours, lowering the pitcher into the well and bringing it up again to the rope, and she was really getting in for a lot of work if she agreed to do this. So he didn't ask God to do anything easy, but something difficult. And in verse 19 the answer comes, and she said, I will draw water for thy camels also until they have done drinking. Well, the Bible says in verse 21, and the man wondering at her held his peace. He probably thought, you know, Isaac, if I was 40 years younger, forget it, I'd never go back. My, what a beautiful, industrious, decent girl this is. I didn't think they made girls like this anymore. Then he introduces himself to her and to her family, and he tells them of her, of his purpose. And so we read in 29 that 28, the damsel ran and told them of her mother's house these things. And so finally now, the servant is invited inside, and he tells them, like I said, what he's there for. And then they ask him to stay several days, and he said, no. In verse 56 he said, I have to leave, I can't stay, I've got to go back. Now Rebecca will have to determine whether she wants to go with me and become the bride of Isaac. And verse 57, so the family have a little conference, Rebecca's family, and they said, we will call the damsel and inquire at her mouth. And they called Rebecca and said unto her, will thou go with this man? And she said, I will go. And they sent away Rebecca, their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and his men. Later on we find out that this nurse's name is Deborah, she's a very godly woman. And they blessed Rebecca and said unto her, thou art our sister, but be thou now the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate thee, hate them. And Rebecca arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels, and followed the man, and the servants took Rebecca, the servant took Rebecca, and went his way. And now in verse 62, Isaac is anxiously awaiting now for the servant to return. And verse 63, and Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide, and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and behold, the camels were coming. And Rebecca lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel, for she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, It is my master, and of course it was her husband to be. Therefore she took a veil, and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all things that he had done. And Isaac brought her unto, into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebecca, and she became his wife, and he loved her, and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. This chapter is one of the great typical chapters in all the Bible. I want you to notice some foreshadows or types here. There's a number of them. Abraham, in this chapter, is a perfect type to the Heavenly Father. You see, it is the Father, and we've said this already, who is planning a marriage for his beloved son. In the New Testament, Jesus speaks about this. The kingdom of heaven, he says in Matthew 22, is likened to a king who prepared a wedding for his son. So in this chapter, Abraham is a type of the Father. Now Isaac is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, because Isaac, like Jesus, had been offered up as a sacrifice, and now he seeks his bride. And Isaac, like Christ, had been given all things of his father. Abraham had given Isaac all things, and Christ had been given all things by his father. And then finally, Isaac, like Christ, loves his bride dearly. The Bible says that he loved her, and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. And then in the New Testament, we read in Ephesians 5, Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. So Abraham is a type of the Father. Isaac is a perfect type of the Lord Jesus. And Eleazar, the servant here, I believe is a type of the Holy Spirit. How is that, you say? Well, Abraham's servant came to Mesopotamia for one sole reason, and that's to take a bride for Isaac, his master. And years later, in Acts chapter 2, the birthday of the church, the Holy Spirit would come to Pentecost for one purpose. And what was that? To gather a bride for his son. The Apostle Paul says in Ephesians that God, in the dispensation of the fullness of time, might gather all peoples into one, the body of Christ, the bride of the body of Christ here and the body of Christ. And so Eleazar is a perfect type of the Holy Spirit. And then Rebekah, of course, is a perfect type of the church, because the church is likened to a group of people that await in a foreign land, and they're on their way toward the promised land, the heavenly land, and Rebekah does this, of course. And I think probably Rebekah's family here becomes a type of the soul winner, because in chapter 24, verse 58, they, Rebekah's family, called Rebekah and said unto her, Will thou go with this man? And she said, I will go. So I think they become a type of the soul winner. You see, what God wants the believer to do is to go out and tell sinners, would you like to be joined to Christ in marriage? If so, would you listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit? Will you go with the, will you obey the ministry of the Holy Spirit and go with him that he might join you to the body of Christ? What a beautiful chapter we have here. All right, in chapter 25, as his life now definitely begins to come to a close, he lives longer than he thought he would, and he lives to see not only Isaac and Rebekah married, but later on they have twins, of course, and their names are Esau and Jacob, and Abraham, although we don't read of any, you know, meeting that he had or any episode in their life, and yet he has a chance to bounce these twins upon his knee as the faithful old grandfather. In chapter 25, Abraham marries for the third time. This is the third of three wives, the final one of three wives. His first one, of course, was Sarai, and then her name was changed to Sarah, and then he marries Hagar, and in verse 1 of chapter 25, then again, Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah, and she bare him six boys, and he is well over a hundred, in fact, he lives to be 175 years of age, and he may be 150, 160 by this time, and so when God rejuvenated his body, when he was a hundred at the birth of his son Isaac, and then God miraculously gave him the ability to father other children. So actually, Abraham fathered at least eight boys, there may be others that we do not know about, eight children, they were all boys, it was Isaac, Ishmael, and six boys from Keturah. Only one is important here of the six, and his name is Midian, and he would later become the founder of the Midianites. All right, this brings to an end this lecture, and we'll finish up the life of Abraham, and go into the life of his son Isaac in the next lecture. Thank you.