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ELEVENTH SUNDAY

Morning

REBEKAH AND ISAAC

Passage to be read: Gen. xxiv. 10-28, 58-67.

HREE years have passed since the death of Sarah,

and now we come to a very different scene. Through heart-breaking sorrows and through God-given joys the course of human life rolls onward; and in the Bible story, as in our own experience, there is the chequering of light and shadow. Abraham is a very old man now; he has fought his fight well, and he has kept the faith; but there is still one matter that weighs heavily upon him, in a way which we of the West can hardly understand. With us, when a young man wishes to get married, he himself takes the initiative. He would never think of letting the matter be settled for him, even by the most affectionate of fathers. But in the East, and especially in early times, parental control was very wide in its reach, and a son's marriage (like his education now) was one of the cares and duties of the father. This was the matter that was weighing upon Abraham. Isaac was forty years of age now, and unmarried. If the promise was to be fulfilled in Isaac's line, had not the hour come when Isaac should be wed? It was this conviction which determined Abraham to take the steps recorded in our chapter.

NOW it reveals the intensity of Abraham's faith that

in this matter he should have acted so. He was determined that, at whatever cost, he would have a wife

for his son from his own kindred. Around him there were wealthy and powerful chiefs, into whose families Isaac would have been welcomed. Powerful alliances might have been cemented, that would have enormously strengthened Abraham's position. But all such worldly trafficking Abraham scorned; it was not in such ways Canaan must be won; Abraham had looked to God in twenty choices, and now he would trust Him in choosing Isaac's bride. So Eliezer, his head-servant, set out. It seemed on the face of it a wild-goose chase. Was it likely that any of the maidens of Haran would leave their homes to venture on such a journey? Eliezer had many such thoughts within his heart. But he did his duty, and we know how he was prospered, till that hour at eventide when Isaac was in the fields; nor can we doubt that this brave and noble woman, so quick to decide and so prompt to act, was exquisitely fitted to be the bride of quiet and patient and meditative Isaac.

FIRST note, then, what loyal service was rendered by

Eliezer. It was a strange errand on which he was sent away. To the eye of sense it seemed to be doomed to failure. Yet he threw himself into it with all his heart, and carried it through with consummate tact and wisdom. When he was taken into Laban's house, and when the camels had been tended, and the foot-washing was over, there was meat set before him, but not a bite would he touch, till he had told the errand that brought him to Haran (v. 33). Right through the journey you can detect the servant at every cost putting his master first. And right through the journey, in the heart of all the service, you light on fervent prayer to Abraham's God. Is not that a type of what our service should be? Does not Eliezer put some of us to shame? Are we as patient and as tactful and as prayerful in all we strive to do for our great Master? When our hopes of successful labour grow remote; when the claims of self seek to assert

themselves; when in the stress and anxiety of work we find ourselves forgetting supplication, it is never lost time to open Genesis, and travel to Haran in Eliezer's company.

NOTE

OTE next how our casual meetings are arranged by God. When the Samaritan woman came to Jacob's well, and found a stranger sitting by it, weary, it seemed to her to be a casual meeting; yet all the world knows now how God had ordered it. So here Rebekah came to draw at eventide, and by chance (as she thought) there was a stranger there; yet we know what prayers in the far-off tent of Abraham, and what earnest petitions from Eliezer's lips, were being answered as Rebekah came to draw. The meeting was not casual after all; behind it was many a cry of fervent prayer; and may we not say that in every human life there are hours, like this one, that seem quite meaningless, and yet behind them, could we but pierce the gloom, there is the moving of the hand of God. We must be very wakeful in our common days. We must remember the background of the most casual meeting. In minimis Deus maximus, says the wise apophthegm: in the least things God is greatest.

NOTE, lastly, how far-reaching may be the consequences

of one kindness. It was very kindly and gracious of Rebekah to draw water for Eliezer's camels. Travellers, who are loud in praise of Oriental kindness, tell us that that favour is scarcely ever rendered. Now Rebekah had no ulterior motives in her action, she was but following the dictates of her own generous heart; yet the consequences of that one act were quite incalculable; had it never been done, she had never been Isaac's bride. Is not that a hint of the far-reaching power of every kindly deed we try to do? Does it not teach us that in ways we cannot estimate, the generous

deed we do shall have its harvest? It is not always easy to be kind. We may be worried, or tired, or burdened with some cross. But for Rebekah, the road to joy and glory began in a kindly and hospitable deed, and who can tell what may not open for us, if, like her, we begin by helping somebody?

ELEVENTH SUNDAY

Evening

THE CALL OF THE FISHERMEN

Passage to be read: Luke v. I-II.

T was not easy for Jesus Christ to be alone, men were so eager and so curious about Him. Not

I'

only did they crowd round Him in the villages, where at any moment there might be a work of healing, but they also watched Him as He stole away into retirement, among the hills, or by the seashore. Our lesson opens, then, with Jesus at the seaside, and there, as in Capernaum, there is a great crowd round Him, eager to listen to the Word of God. Then Jesus steps into one of the fishing-boats and preaches there-note the many and strange pulpits in which Christ preached. And when the sermon was over, and Jesus was doubtless weary-what did He do? did He ask for a drink of water? He immediately turned to Peter, in whose boat He was, and said to him, 'Launch out into the deep.' He had seen the disappointed look in Peter's face. He had detected that the night's fishing was a failure. All the excitement of the thronging crowd, and all the effort of telling them God's news, had not made Him careless of one man's disappointment. So may we learn to trust Christ's individual care, though we be

only atoms in a countless multitude. Then follows the miracle, and the call to discipleship, and so this brief but exquisite lesson closes.

NOW, note that it was in deep waters that the draught was got. The first word of Jesus was, 'Launch out into the deep.' If the nets were to be filled with fish that morning, the first requirement was to leave the shallows. Now, every miracle is but an acted parable; there are meanings in it that all life may interpret, and to us to-day, no less than to Simon Peter, Jesus is saying, 'Launch out into the deep.' We must come right out for God if we are ever to enjoy Him. We must unfasten the cable that binds us to the shore. It is when we launch out into the deeps of trust, that we find how mysteriously the nets are filling. For the harvest of life's sea is joy and peace, and growing insight, and increasing love, and these are beyond the reach of every fisherman, save of him who dares to launch into the deep. Then, too, as experience increases, we learn the meaning of the expression 'deep waters.' We learn that sorrow and care, and suffering and loss are the deep waters of the human heart. And when we find what a harvest these may bring, and how men may be blessed and purified and made unworldly by them, we understand the need of the deep waters, if the nets are ever to be filled.

NOTE again that God's gifts may cause some disorder

at the first. When Peter at Christ's command let down the net, it enclosed a great multitude of fishes. We may be sure that the net was a good one if it was Peter's making, yet for all its goodness it began to break. Now nets are very precious to a fisherman; the loss of them is sometimes irreparable. So in a moment we see Peter and Andrew beckoning to their neighbours' boat, and like the man of Macedonia, crying, 'Come

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