Bride By Faith

“And the servant said unto him, Peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land: must I needs bring thy son again unto the land from whence thou camest?” (Ge 24:5 AV)

This servant’s concern was a valid one.  What happens if Rebekah does not wish to return to a land she has never been to and marry someone she has never met?  Is the servant free to bring Isaac to Rebekah in the former land of his master?  This seems like a pretty logical solution to a hypothetical situation.  Abraham did not want his seed to return to the land from which they were taken lest the promise of God becomes of no effect.  If Isaac returns to Ur, he may remain there.  Specially if he takes a wife from there.  This would undo the very call of Abraham to separate and begin a nation.  Even more so, this is a wonderful picture of salvation by faith.  The bride, that is the church, must accept the proposal of a Savior whom they have only heard of and never met.  Rebekah didn’t even get the chance to correspond with her groom and get to know him prior to making the decision.  She had to make it solely on the word of the servant.  She accepted the offer purely by faith.  This is exactly what the sinner must do.  He or she must accept the offer of salvation by the word of another.  Without the luxury of meeting the Savior face to face, the sinner must accept the free gift of salvation or they will remain in the state of which they are and die lost in their sin.

One of my good friends from years ago has a very interesting story of how he and his wife ended up married.  Lawrence and Maxie barely knew one another.  He and his cousin decided they wanted to get married, so Lawrence and his cousin decided to ask these two girls if they wanted to get married.  They loaded up in a car and drove to Mississippi to wed.  They had to because they were too young to marry in their home state.  There was no courting period.  No lengthy time of getting to know one another.  It was three days and they were married, heading back home as husband and wife.  Both of these marriages passed the test of time.  Lawrence and Maxie were married for decades and were completely faithful to one another.  I often thought of how much courage and integrity it took for this arrangement to succeed.  Specially on the part of the wives.  They had agreed to marry a man whom they barely knew and made the decision in a matter of hours.  They made the relationship more than work.  It took a lot of faith to make that decision.  And a lot of courage.

Salvation is equally so.  It requires we believe the word of a written account of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We must believe the word of another.  The written word of God testifies of a groom whom we have never met.  It tells the love story of how He gave His life for any and all who will trust Him.  We accept that word of another and place our trust in what He has done for us.  We leave the future to Him just as Rebekah did Isaac.  At the time, we didn’t have all the answers to our questions.  But we decided to trust Him anyway.  What a glorious decision.  There isn’t one account of Rebekah ever regretting her decision.  In fact, it is said of Isaac that he sported with his wife, Rebekah.  It sounded like they were in love from the time they met.  Rebekah showed great character by trusting the word of a servant as was handsomely rewarded as a result.  If you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, I would implore you to do so.  Take Him by faith.  In time, you will have all the answers you seek.