Is It Luck or God? Divine Sovereignty vs. Free Will

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, good to have everybody back, and we're going to pick right up where we left off, and that'll be back in Genesis chapter 24. Now, you remember in our last program, we were drawing that comparison between the sending out of the servant for a bride for the son, Isaac, as a parallel of the work of the Holy Spirit today calling out the body of Christ. Now, we're going to just go ahead and finish the chapter in these next few moments, and then we're going to go to Psalms chapter 2, and I've got a reason for that, because right off the top of your head you're going to think, well, now, what has Psalms chapter 2 got with all this? Well, I think that when we get there, we'll be able to explain it. But if you'll come back with me now in Genesis chapter 24, and you'll find the servant makes this covenant or this oath with Abraham, and then in verse 10, the servant took ten camels, and he departed for all the goods of his master were in his hand. Now, you want to remember Abraham is a wealthy man. He's got tons of silver and gold and flocks and servants, and no doubt this servant, and like I said, I'm going to assume it's Eliezer, he took a pretty good sampling of all of it. And so he makes his way up to Mesopotamia. Now again, maybe it'd be good to always remind ourselves of the geography. Here's the Mediterranean Sea again, and Sea of Galilee. Up here is present-day Damascus, and Haran was up here north of present-day Damascus, just on this side of the Euphrates River, which of course is part of that fertile crescent, as we learned way back in high school or whatever. But clear up here into Syria. Now it's not all that far, as we in America think of in miles. Everything in the Middle East is all real compact. But nevertheless, for that day and time, going by camel, it was still a good long journey. And so he goes up to Haran, to the area from which Abraham had come earlier, and where of course his old father Terah had died. And now he's already there, and come down to verse 11. The servant made his camels to kneel down outside the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water. It's kind of interesting, isn't it, that we in America can't quite comprehend women coming more and more into the workforce. It's kind of against our ethics. But you know, it's the way it's always been. I can remember way back when I was a kid, when missionaries would come back from Africa with their old 8-millimeter movies. And the men would be sitting outside their hunts, drinking their homemade brew and getting drunk. But the women were out in the field doing all the work. They were doing the grinding. They were doing the cooking. And so I have been brainwashed with this, that the women have been more or less the slaves of the men for many, many centuries. And so here as well. It's the women that drew the water, took care of the flocks, and I suppose the men just sort of sat back and were overlords. But here's the situation. The servant stops with his camels at this well of water, and he makes a prayer. In verse 12. And he said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray Thee, send me good speed this day, and show kindness to my master. Behold, I stand here by the well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water. Now here's his continuing prayer. Let it come to pass that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray Thee, that I may drink, that she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also. Now that's the fleece that he's putting out. Now Lord, he says, when the right girl answers in that way, then I'll know. Now I always have to think in the book of Ruth. Do you remember when Naomi had lost her sons, and she ended up with the two daughters-in-law? The one stayed in Moab, but Naomi came back with her up into the land of Palestine, into Israel. And the word is used that she happened to end up in the right field, and happened to be a next of kin to labor in the harvest field. But you know that word, hap, or happen, is more than that. You know, I was talking to a fellow on the phone a while back, and he said something. I said, well, I wish you luck. And he said, now, Les? He said, in the life of a believer, there's no such thing as luck. And I said, you're right, forgive me. And that's so true. I mean, there is no such thing as luck in the life of a believer. God is in such complete control that we can honestly say that everything that happens, as Romans 8 makes it so plain, that all things work together for good. Why? Because God's in control. Well, now, same way here. It just happened, but not really, that Rebekah is the girl who makes the first approach, and when he asks for a drink of water, she does just exactly what he asked. And she comes on the scene now, verse 15, "...and it came to pass, before he had even finished speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel." Now, remember, we had all these on the board last week. "...the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder, and the damsel was very fair." She was beautiful. "...to look upon, a virgin, a single girl, untouched, neither had any man known her. And she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up. And Abraham's servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher." Now look at her answer. "...and she said, Drink, my lord. And she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, gave him drink. And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I'll draw water for your camels also." Now what does the servant know? Here she is. Not only was she eligible, but she had all the physical attributes that no doubt caught his attention. After all, these people are just as human as we are. And so, she hastily draws the water, and then of course he knows that this is the one. Now you've come all the way down to verse 26. "...and the man, this servant, bowed his head, and he worshipped Jehovah, the God of Abraham. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth. I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master's brethren. And the damsel ran and told them." Now verse 29, "...and Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban." Now Laban, of course, is going to come on the scene when we start dealing with Jacob in a few weeks. And remember, it was Laban from whom Jacob then worked to earn his two wives, Rachel and Leah. But now Laban, as a young man, comes running out, and I like verse 30, because all these people are so human. I think a lot of times people get the idea that these Bible characters were some kind of a cut above the human. No, they aren't. They're just as human as we are. And so this brother comes running out, "...and when he saw," underline that, "...and when he saw the earrings and the bracelets," what does he see? The wealth that this man represents, see? And I'll bet his eyes just bugged out, and he thought, wow, what in the world is my little sister getting into? "...and when he saw the earrings and the bracelets upon his sister's hands, and then when he heard the words of Rebekah saying, Thus saith the man unto me, that he came to the man, and behold, he stood by the camels." And boy, I mean, he's all for it, because there's some wealth involved. And verse 31, he says, "...come in, thou blessed of the Lord," or of Jehovah. Now, I always have to remind people that I teach that when these pagans speak of the Lord and they speak of God and so forth, it isn't that they themselves were actual believers or that they knew Jehovah. But you want to remember that everybody in this Middle Eastern environment is saturated with paganism. And even these relatives of Abram, all the children of Terah were idolaters. And you'll remember, and we'll come to it in a few weeks, even when Jacob was coming back from Laban years after this, and he has made his way back toward Canaan with Leah and with Rachel and all their children, then all of a sudden, who came pursuing him? Oh, her father. And what was he looking for? The family gods, the idols, see? And of course, Rachel had them hidden. So these people are all idolaters. And so always take it with a grain of salt that when they use the name Jehovah or the Lord, it isn't that they're believers, it's just that so far as they're concerned, it's just another name of another god, realizing, of course, that this is the God of Abraham. Whatever. So they use the name of the Lord and Jehovah, and then, of course, the word is passed to the girl's father that this servant of their relative Abram, Abraham, is looking for a bride, and Rebekah seems to be the one. Now for sake of time, we're not going to read all these verses, but if you'll read it in your leisure, you'll find that even though the servant does all that he can to woo and win this beautiful girl, yet she had to make the final decision. And you'll pick that up in verse 58. Now after they have had all their feasting and they're getting acquainted and so forth in the house now of Rebekah and her family, it boils down to her making the choice. Verse 57, And they said, We will call the damsel, and inquire at her mouth. And they called Rebekah, and they said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go. She makes the final decision. Now, of course, it's the same way with salvation today. The Holy Spirit can woo, the Holy Spirit can convict, but God will never take someone by the nap of the neck and force the issue. I have often said that I am certainly not against evangelism per se, but I am against arm-twisting because, see, that falls down into the energy of the flesh. When it comes to salvation, it has to be totally the work of the Holy Spirit. And I'm afraid that too many times other things enter in and people are almost forced to make a false decision. And then years down the road, people wonder, well, what happened, that that Christian is bankrupt spiritually? Well, I'm afraid they never had a true experience because it was approached in the wrong way. But here, Rebekah is left with a choice, and she says, I will go. So verse 59, they send away Rebekah, their sister, and her nurse, and Abram's servant, and his men. And so they take off now from way up here in Syria, and they're heading back down into the land of Canaan. And now we're going to pick up the husband-to-be, the man, of course, who is representative of Christ himself now, who is letting the Holy Spirit do the wooing and the winning of those that come into the body of Christ. We pick him up in verse 62, and Isaac came from the way of the well of Hyrule, for he dwelt in the south country. That is, south of Jerusalem. That'd be down in the Negev, in the area of Beersheba. Now Beersheba is still a hustling city of about three or four hundred thousand. So it's that same area of Israel. And Isaac, verse 63, went out to meditate in the field at eventide. Now there's a lot of commentaries that have difference of opinions about this word meditate. Some think he just went out to just simply that, to just think things through, and some think he's thinking about the servant bringing him a bride. But I think the crux of the matter is, back in chapter 23, you'll remember, an important person in Isaac's life died. Who was it? Well, it was his mother. And I think what you've got here is that Isaac is mourning the loss of his mother, and he's walked out in the field to contemplate the loss of his mother. And it's just simply referred to here as meditating. But nevertheless, verse 63, he goes out to meditate in the field at eventide, and he lifted up his eyes, and he saw, and behold, what? The camels were coming. Now, all of a sudden, his grief and his loneliness has turned to what? Joy and expectation. His bride is coming. Now what I want you to understand is that Isaac, who has been living down here in the south country, now we've got the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, and so Beersheba is clear down here in the desert area, and here they've been coming. And Isaac has left his home, the tent of Abraham and Sarah, and at some point between home and the far country from which his bride is coming, there is a meeting. Now what's the lesson? So it will be when Christ calls his bride home. He's not going to just immediately call her to heaven, but He's going to leave heaven and meet her part way. And we're going to be looking at that, not in this lesson, but hopefully in the next one. But get the picture now that Isaac has left home, he's part way, and here comes his bride Rebekah. All right, now let's move on, and hopefully we can finish the chapter and be ready for our next lesson, which I said would probably be Psalms chapter 2. Verse 64, Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel, for she said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us? Now I'm sure she had a pretty good idea, but you see the Scripture does that so many times. How many times haven't I told you? Whenever Jesus really wanted to get something out of somebody, what would He do? He would ask them a question. He knew the answer, and even way back in the Garden of Eden, God didn't have to ask, but what did He? He said, Adam, what have you done? And I think a lot of times the Bible does that just to give us time to think. That here she says, who is this? But she knew, oh, this was her husband -to-be, her fiancé, I guess we'd call him today. She says, so who is this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, Ah, it's my master. Therefore she took a veil and covered herself, again according to that Middle Eastern custom, and the servant told Isaac, now I want you to just kind of picture these things. Here they have just met, and this servant explains to Isaac how miraculously this whole thing came together. There's no doubt, Isaac, but this is God's choice, for your help me. And so Isaac, of course, had no doubt whatsoever that this indeed was God's choice of a wife for himself. And so it says, verse 67, Isaac brought her unto his mother Sarah's tent, took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. Now those of you who have been in my classes over the years, what have I always said? The Bible never tells the wife to love the husband. But what? Husbands love your wives. And here it is. It doesn't say that Rebekah loved him, although we know she did. But it began with Isaac loving the wife, and Isaac loved her. And now here's why I think he was meditating over his mother's death. And he was comforted after his mother's death. By what? Oh, this whole new part and parcel that came into his own experience. And that vacuum was suddenly filled now with this new bride. All right, now let's go to Psalm chapter 2. In the few moments that we've got left, we're not going to be able to, I'm sure, finish everything that I want out of Psalms chapter 2, but maybe it'll prepare us for the next part of our study. And that is, how is the present-day age of grace pictured as the calling out of a Gentile bride for God the Son, for the Christ? Well, the only way we can understand the language of Paul with regard to the calling out of the bride is to get an even better understanding of the Old Testament program. And I'm afraid here is where we've had so much confusion over the years and throughout all of Christendom, is that there is so much mixing of the Old Testament program with the age of grace and vice versa, that no one really knows what to believe and why and how. So we're going to take these few moments to outline the Old Testament program. Now the reason I'm emphasizing it is because nowhere in the Old Testament or well into the New is there a single hint that there would be a Gentile bride of Christ. Everything is Israel. Israel is to be the wife of Jehovah. And if you've ever studied the book of Hosea, Hosea is told to go out and actually marry a woman of the street, take her home to be his wife, but it isn't very long until she's back out on the street with all of her multitude of lovers, and then by the time you get to the end of the book of Hosea, she has been restored and she's back in fellowship with her husband. Well, that's the beautiful picture of Israel, always so adulterous in chasing other gods all the way through the Old Testament. God would bless them for a period of time and they'd go right back after pagan gods. But we know the day is coming when Israel is going to be restored, and all of her adulterous past will be put behind her and will be forgotten. But we've got another analogy, and that is the bride of Christ. Now the bride of Christ, of course, is, well, let me show you the verse. Keep your hand in Psalms in case we've got time to come back to it. Let's go to 1 Corinthians. Now there are some that probably don't agree with me that the church is the bride, but I always tell people, you don't have to agree with me. That doesn't upset me. I just teach it the way I see it and the way I've been made most comfortable. And 1 Corinthians chapter 11, 2 Corinthians chapter 11, I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians chapter 11, 2 Corinthians chapter 11, and drop down to verse 1, where Paul begins, As would to God you could bear with me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with me. Well, now, I guess that's just about how I feel so many times. When I begin to teach some of these things that I know the average believer has never heard, then I just have to say, well, bear with me, sooner or later we're going to show you that this is what the Scripture really says, so bear with me. But now verse 2, where Paul writes, I am jealous over you. Now remember who he's writing to. He's writing to the Corinthian church, a Gentile church, and he says, I'm jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I have espoused or have gotten you engaged to one husband that I may present you, that is the body of Christ, as a chaste or a pure virgin to Christ. Now, all the way through Paul's letters he is making reference, then, that Christ is the head and he's more or less the husband, if you want to use that analogy again, and the body of Christ is his virgin bride. And that's why Paul is always admonishing the believer to live a life of purity, a life of separation, because we are not to be the adulterous wife of Jehovah as Israel was. So now then, if you'll go back, and we'll just get a little bit of a start on Psalms chapter 2. And Psalms chapter 2 is an outline, as I said a moment ago, of the Old Testament program. And in Psalms chapter 2 there is no hint, no more than there is anywhere else in the Old Testament or even in the Gospels as far as that's concerned, of this mystery, this secret kept in the mind of God, of what we call the Gentile bride of Christ or the body of Christ. Everything has been promises made to Israel. Psalms chapter 2, beginning with verse 1, why do the heathen or the non-Jew, the Gentiles, why do they rage? And the people, Israel, imagine a vain thing. Now that word vain is probably best defined as Solomon uses it, where Solomon finally says, vanity, vanity, all is vanity. Well it's just an activity of uselessness. And so this is what the Scripture is asking, why? Why do the people of this world, Jew and Gentile alike, just constantly exercise for nothing? Verse 2, the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers, that is the rulers of Israel, take counsel together, Jew and Gentile, against the Lord or against Jehovah again and against His Anointed, which of course is the term for Christ, the Anointed One. So why do the rulers of this world and of Israel reject the Anointed One, the Messiah? And then you come down to verse 3, and they say in so many words, let us break their bands asunder, that is the control of the Godhead, and that's why we got a plural pronoun, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. In other words, they're going to reject God in their affairs. Now if you'll remember when Israel was presented with Christ by Pilate, what was their response? Away with Him. We'll not have this man to rule over us. And so Pilate carried it out, the Jews demanded it, and so the whole human race falls under the guilt then of the crucifixion, that the rulers of Jews and Gentile rejected Him, and they said, crucify Him. All right, so they cast off every opportunity of God being able to rule over them. After all, that's why Christ came, didn't He? He came to be their King, and He was presented as their King. But they continued to reject, and they continued in the place where they finally actually put Him to death. And then verse 4, "...he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh," oh hey, they can never outdo God, and He's going to have the last word. So, "...he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them," that is, the people of this old earth, "...in derision." Now the word derision is best summed up as total confusion, total confusion. Well, now, our time is gone, and we'll just pick this right up in our next program for those of you that are watching us on television. We'll come right back to Psalms chapter 2, but get the setting of this Old Testament program, and the reason I'm doing this is to show where the church fits into the whole scheme of things. All right, we'll have to stop for now. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, OK 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, OK 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.