Genesis 22:19-24 KJV
19 So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.
20 And it came to pass after these things, that it was told Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she hath also born children unto thy brother Nahor;
21 Huz his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram,
22 And Chesed, and Hazo, and Pildash, and Jidlaph, and Bethuel.
23 And Bethuel begat Rebekah: these eight Milcah did bear to Nahor, Abraham's brother.
24 And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, she bare also Tebah, and Gaham, and Thahash, and Maachah.
Amen, glory to God. Welcome to the program. Welcome to the cafe, pastor Clark Coventon here, the another episode of KJV cafe. So glad you're here with us. If you haven't already, check out our other podcasts. We have weekend edition, which is a Bible study. Um, well, it's more like preaching. Bible study just randomly, but it's more like preaching. And that's 30 minutes. And that comes out on Friday and Saturday, uh, called KJV cafe weekend edition. And then there's the truck driver's hour, which comes out every Friday. And it's a one hour episode and it is a mix of everything of preaching, of Bible study, of, uh, biographies of great men and women of God, of just good news stories, just stuff to keep you a company in the car for those that are on the road a lot. Um, that's the truck driver's hour. And that comes up Friday, uh, every Friday. And I think, I think we're on about a hundred episodes of KJV cafe. Weekend edition. So there's a bunch there. And I want to say we've done 13 12 or 13 of the truck driver's hour. And of course you may be listening to this years from now and there could be a lot more or a none. I don't know, but, uh, for now, there's a fair bit. So check it out. If you have time on your favorite app, just look up KJV cafe weekend edition or truck driver's hour should show up. All right. So what we're doing here is looking at Genesis 22 and Lord willing, we're going to wrap it up here today. So what I'll do is I'll read 19 through 24. And we'll touch on a couple of things and move on to Genesis 23. All right. So Genesis 22 verse 19. So Abraham returned unto his young men and they rose up and went together to bear Sheba and Abraham dwelt at bear Sheba. And it came to pass after these things that it was told Abraham saying, "Behold, Milka Sheith also born children unto thy brother Nahor, huzz, his firstborn and buzz his brother and Kemuel, the father of A. Ram and Chesed and Haso and Pildash and jid lap and Bethel and Bethel. Begot Rebecca. These eight milk added bear to Nahor Abraham's brother and his concubine whose name was Remia. She also bear Tebeth and Gaham and the hash and Mecca. All right. Well, I don't know how well I pronounced those, but I did it. I did the best I could. Like I look at the letters closely because sometimes I'm like, man, let me make sure there's not like an R in here and in here that I don't see. But what we have here is a genealogy. And the point that this genealogy gets to very clearly is what we're about to see in a couple of chapters, which is Rebecca. And we see here that Abraham has a brother, Nahor, right? And Nahor has children with, let's see, Milka, and they have children and they have a child named Bethel, and Bethel has a child named Rebecca. So this would be Nahor's granddaughter, right? So Abraham would be like, I think they would say great uncle, I guess, to Rebecca. So it's kind of confusing because Isaac marries Rebecca and Isaac is Abraham's son. So you have Abraham's son marrying his brother's granddaughter. I think I've got that correct. So that's really the crux of it. But we're going to go deeper into this genealogy as well as touch on some other points when we come back from this break. So stay tuned. Hey, it's break time around here. Thank you for listening to KJV Cafe. If you haven't already, visit kjvcafe.com for more information. Okay, so why here? Why now? What's important about this? And you always have to ask yourself, when you see something in Scripture, why is it here, right? Like it never hurts to ask, why is something here? Why is it present here? What's the reason for this, right? So obviously you want to ask, what does it mean? You know, like, who are these people? We see that this is a genealogy for Nahor, which is Abraham's brother. Okay. And we see here in this line, Rebecca, who would be Nahor's granddaughter. And so we see that Abraham knows this. Verse 20, this is a very important verse here. And it came to pass after these things that it was told Abraham, it was told Abraham. So after these things, after Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac, they're at Mariah and the ram is given in substitute. We now see after these things, he returns to bear Sheba and the very next verse tells us that he is told that Milka has given children to Nahor, here are the children, and here is the grandchild. Okay. And so along with the, the concubine giving children to Nahor, but for the grandchild, Rebecca, we now know that Abraham knows. And the reason why this is important is if you go to Genesis 24, what I'll do is just read some of Genesis 24 here. And Abraham was old and well-stricken and 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. And this is what people did in the old Bible times, really old old times to make a promise. That's just me interjecting. Verse three, and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, the God of earth, that thou shall not take a wife unto my son of the daughters that Canaanites among whom I dwell. So this is the under the thigh. You can research a lot about that. There's tons of information about that online. It is like a big time promise, covenant agreement. And the servant here is being told what that his son, Isaac should not marry one of the people where they dwell. Now think about how people get married today. Oftentimes they meet at work, they meet at school. You know, and now I know some people meet in different ways. They can meet on a vacation. They could meet online. You know, they could meet in a multitude of ways. But truly, naturally, it makes sense. A lot of people just meet where they are, right? You meet at school, you meet at work. And in the Bible times, you may meet at the at the well, or you may meet at the gate of the city, right? You may meet, you know, at a gathering, especially maybe a family gathering or something like this. And Abraham is saying, don't let Isaac marry one of the daughters of the Canaanites. Why is this so important? Because the chosen line had to stay within the Jews, right? It would have messed things up if they if Isaac, the chosen child was not marrying one of his own. Verse four, "But thou shall go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac." So verse four of Genesis 24 helps underscore what Genesis 22 verse 20 tells us, that Abraham understood that he has kindred, that has children and grandchildren. So send him over there. Now, did Abraham understand in Genesis 22 that Isaac would end up marrying Rebecca? I don't know that he understood that, but he understood enough to know that there were people there. And that is why Genesis 22, 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24 is so relevant when we look at Genesis 24. So without going into Genesis 24, any deeper, because we're going to be there in a few chapters, matter of fact, after this episode, we're going to be on Genesis 23, right? And that is the death of Sarah and so forth. We're going to be on 24 soon. So I'm not going to go through all of Genesis 24, other than to say that Genesis 22 comes before Genesis 24, and in Genesis 22, we are told that after these things, that it was told to Abraham, "Hey, here's this genealogy." How many people read that? You know, Genesis 22, the latter part, and just breeze right through it. You know, like me trying to say the names, you know, they're like, "Ah, okay, so-and-so had so-and-so, all right." But what we see is that God is working. He's at work in the life of Abraham by giving Abraham information that he will shortly use to ensure that his son Isaac is sent a wife through the servant there, that is from his home country, which is not where they are. Where is he at? He's obviously, as Genesis 24 alludes do, among the Canaanites, right? We know Guarari was dwelling among the Philistines a long time, and then in 24, it says, "Don't let him marry one of these." The Canaanites, one of the locals, the Canaanites, right? Abraham was brought into the promised land. He is in that area, and he doesn't want that to happen. So God gives him this information in advance, right? Now, how about you? What information is God giving you in advance that he's going to do something with in the near future? Have you ever thought about that? I mean, honestly, if you look at that, and you start, you know, here's the biblical worldview, okay? God's in full control. He's fully sovereign. Nothing happens without God's explicit permission. God is never surprised. He is, there is no surprise in God. He knows everything from the beginning to the end, and while things look very out of control to us in the world, as they often probably looked to Abraham at that time, or to King David, or to anyone else in the Bible, right? God's in full control through it all. And so we see here that God is planting that seed that will be shortly watered and sprouting and so forth in the very near future when Rebecca is given to Isaac as a wife. And that brings about Jacob and Esau. And Jacob, we know, is the father, literally, of the 12 tribes. So what we can see is that God often is working in advance in the lives of those that he is using for his plan and his glory on earth. And we need to pay attention. We need to pay attention to the little things. This might have been a little thing coming back from that big experience there in Mariah. This might have been a little thing to get word, or it may have been a big thing. It may have been very exciting. I have no idea, probably somewhat of a bigger thing. But either way, we have to pay attention to what God is doing in our life. How is he acting? How is he leading? What is he putting? What information is he putting? In my day-to-day, there's all kinds of ordinary things that happen. And in my mind, I'm processing them like, okay, God, what are you going to do with this? I wonder what you're going to do with that. It could be anything from picking up something for work that I don't need right now and thinking, well, maybe God's going to do something with that later. It could be with meeting an individual. It could be with an idea for a ministry that I just make a note about and don't do anything with now. It could be a documentary that comes up on my feet and then I watch it and tells me about a group of people that we may try to reach in the near future. Whatever it is, you have to have that mindset of, hey, what is God doing if in fact you're living for God? So if you're not living for God, if you're out in sin, the Bible says the wages of sin is death. And so you're going to experience the spiritual death. Here, sin separates you from God and his will and all this stuff. So if you're living in sin, this isn't applicable. But if you are repentant, not perfect, but you're repentant, the idea of Lord, I'm sorry, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm going to do my best to live for you. You're born again, of course. If you're in that category, then you really do need to pay attention to what God's doing in your life and what he's going to be doing in the near future. And I believe that Abraham was praying to God, asking God for direction. How are we going to do this? Lord, how is it going to find one of his own here? And I'm looking in my circle and don't see anybody. And I don't think you want him yoked up with the Canaanite. Well, there we go. Lord is laying on his heart. Get your servant. Have the servant go out there to the homeland and bring her back. Right? And so we see these things, I kind of call them sometimes like breadcrumbs. You know, like little things that occur in our life. And you're just like, oh, you know, maybe God's up to something. And one clear way to see these, how God can use these for the born again believer, the one that is living for the Lord, is you can look back at your life and see what God has done over time. And I was talking to my wife about this yesterday. The idea that God often prepares us our whole life, right, for what he wants us to do. I grew up around broadcasting and recording equipment. And my grandma was doing work on the radio and teaching when I wasn't even born, you know, and I grew up in her household. And my dad worked in TV news his whole career. And my grandpa was a historian and a teacher and on and on. I just grew up around all that stuff and I took it for granted. But as I got older, I look back on it and see all the little things that God was doing that seemed just kind of coincidental or accidental or just incidental on a way to put it. But it didn't seem like anything that God was using. Now, for you friend, God could be doing the same thing. Surely he is again. If you're living for him, you're born again, you love the Lord. He's putting things in your path that may be obvious and they may not be. You know, you may just have a heart to go to nursing school because he wants you to be a nurse. It may be very obvious, but it may not be obvious. It may be things that seem almost dissimilar. It may be things that seem tragic, right? Hard ships. But God is doing something through them to bring you to a place to use you in a way for his kingdom as through you being part of his body. Amen. And I believe we see this here with this information, this genealogy coming to Abraham, that's the idea that he's setting it up for Genesis 24 in a few chapters. All right, that's our time here today. Tune in next time. Take care. God bless and amen. Thanks for listening to KJV Cafe and we'll see you at the cafe tomorrow.
