ABSOLUTELY NOT!

In Genesis 24, verses 1-8 illustrate that there are some things which should never be considered as courses of action under any circumstances.  In our current Sunday message "Put Your Helmet On!", which emphasizes the importance of protecting our thinking from deceptions and letting God's Word be our ultimate authority on everything, we are considering the ways in which our thinking processes can be deceived by our own pride, our own desires, and by the schemes of Satan.

There are some things which God has made abundantly clear in the Scriptures we should never consider: murder, adultery, bearing false witness about someone, etc.  In this passage from Genesis where Abraham is commissioning his servant to go to the relatives and get a wife for Isaac, the servant asks, "What if they won't agree to it?  Shall I take Isaac back to where you came from?"  Abraham absolutely forbids that from ever happening.

We do well to recognize there are some things in life that may at times seem like viable options or almost necessities in order to accomplish a particular objective.  Yet they are things about which God has said, "Absolutely not."  We must use our heads, guard our thoughts, and obey God in such matters or know that we are signing up ourselves and perhaps others for dire consequences.  Such forbiddings are not given by God without good reason.

Now Abraham was old, advanced in age; and the Lord had blessed Abraham in every way. Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he owned, "Please place your hand under my thigh,and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, but you will go to my country and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac." The servant said to him, "Suppose the woman is not willing to follow me to this land; should I take your son back to the land from where you came?" Then Abraham said to him, "Beware that you do not take my son back there! The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me and who swore to me, saying, 'To your descendants I will give this land,' He will send His angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son from there. But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this my oath; only do not take my son back there."