Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #11 of Genesis, chapter 29, and we are going to read Genesis 29:15-20:
And Laban said unto Jacob, Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for nought? Tell me, what shall thy wages be? And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured. And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man: abide with me. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.
We were discussing how Jacob and Laban entered into a contract for marriage. Jacob offered to work for Laban for seven years, and at the end of the seven years, his payment would be the daughter of Laban to wife, and he selected Rachel. Very specifically and very clearly, he told Laban he wanted to marry Rachel. Rachel was the younger daughter.
There did not appear to be a problem at this time, but it says later, in Genesis 29:21-27:
And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast. And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and he went in unto her. And Laban gave unto his daughter Leah Zilpah his maid for an handmaid. And it came to pass, that in the morning, behold, it was Leah: and he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done unto me? did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
If this was the custom, and it probably was customary to give the eldest daughter before the younger, that would make sense, and it might prevent problems in the household. If you gave the younger daughter away, then after that marriage, you would still have the older daughter in your home, and you have to explain to her why it was that she was not given away first in marriage. All that is understandable, but what is not understandable and acceptable is that Laban did not say this at the time he made the deal with Jacob. He had not said to him, “I understand that you want to marry Rachel, but in Haran and in Syria, it is customary to give the elder first in marriage.” Then he could have said, if he had a mind to do so, “Here is how we will work it out. You will have to marry Leah and Rachel.” Maybe Jacob would have refused, and that is probably what Laban was afraid of, so he did not bring it up. Instead, he trapped Jacob into marrying the elder (sister), and then quickly tried to smooth it over by saying, “You will also get the younger (sister), but you will have to work seven more years.”
That is not a good way at all for Jacob to enter into marriage or into that family, and the relationship between Jacob and Laban was immediately strained. It had to be troubled after this, but, ultimately, it was under God’s control and according to His perfect will. God allowed for this to happen, but Rachel was the one that Jacob desired and loved, and whom Jacob did marry. In that, we see a spiritual picture of the marriage relationship to Christ and His church, but not to the corporate church. The corporate churches are the outward physical churches that are on our local street corners, like the Presbyterian, Episcopalian or Catholic. That is the outward church that was legitimate in its “time and season.” God established the corporate churches when He established the church age back in 33 A. D. with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit the first time. So the corporate churches were a legitimate institution designed by God, and in those churches was the Word of God. People were to go to church to hear the Word of God. We do not see the tremendous importance of that because today we all have Bibles in our possession, and Bibles are even online. Bibles are practically everywhere today. Again, the church age began in 33 A. D., and it would not be until the 14th or 15th century until the Bible would start to be printed after the printing press was invented. So for at least 1,400 or 1,500 years, and for long after that, it was only rich people that could afford to buy a Bible, so it was not until the 19th or 20th centuries that people could have Bibles in their own possession. Therefore, for at least 1,500 years, people did not have Bibles. They did not have the Word of God, and the way God designed for them to hear His Word was to gather at the local churches. The churches would have a Bible and a pastor who studied the Bible. The people could not study the Bible. They did not have Bibles, and they did not have online concordances. They had no Bible helps or Bibles, so it was up to the denominations to train the pastors, and they trained them very well, considering the times, and especially since many things were sealed up. The pastor was trained, and he taught the people the Word of God in the churches, and God blessed that and brought forth the firstfruits in that way throughout the church age.
Then when we got to the time of the end, starting on May 21, 2011, the day before the Pentecost could be renewed for another year of the church age, as it were, God ended the church age. And that ended the official task of the churches and congregations on the local street corners. They ceased to be that outward representation of the kingdom of God on earth. They represented the kingdom of God, but God’s real kingdom is an invisible, spiritual kingdom, and that still exists. So all during the church age, when people came to those churches, the outward representation of God’s kingdom, God was still saving the wheat – one here and one there. But the majority of people that entered into the churches were not truly God’s elect. They were not the wheat, but they were tares. Those individuals that were the “wheat” became saved and entered into the eternal, invisible church, or kingdom of God. They became citizens of the heavenly kingdom and they became the bride of Christ. The others had identification with God. They called themselves “Christians,” and they may have thought they were saved. They may have called God “Lord” and thought they were part of the spiritual bride, but they were not. The bride consists only of those that are truly saved.
Then when God ended the church age, He commanded His people to come out of the churches and to go out into the world. The Lord was making His Word much more available in physical form, as many more people had Bibles, and they could find and read the Bible online, and they could download it. Also, God provided many Bible “helps,” like the interlinear Bible, so someone that did not know the original languages could have a better comprehension of what was in view with the original Hebrew and Greek, and the translation could be checked. And concordances were made available so that the average person had a way of studying. But the pastor’s role was extremely important for the first 1,500 or 1,600 years of the church age when these Bible helps were not available. But at the time of the end, God made it so that the pastors were not nearly as important and, actually, they were not important in any way, especially since it was revealed that the pastors, elders, deacons and spiritual leaders were not as faithful as they should have been. God opened up His Word to reveal many things, but these pastors and elders were sticking with the corporate church and its high places that were built into their confessions and creeds. They were telling people things that were ingrained in their seminary teachings, and there was an attitude that the pastor was almost like a king over the congregations, and his word was absolute. Maybe a better analogy would be that the pastor was like a captain on a ship. You do not disagree with the captain of a ship, and you do not disagree with the pastor of a congregation.
And, again, looking at the history of the churches, you can see how that kind of attitude could come about. So when we got to the time of the end, the pastors said, “No man knows the day or the hour! What are you talking about a Biblical calendar? We have Usher’s calendar. What is this you are saying about faith? I have never heard this in seminary about the faith of Christ. Traditional church teaching does not speak of the faith of Christ – it speaks of man’s faith as being instrumental.” And so it was with doctrine after doctrine. But at the time of the end, God trained His people through Family Radio, especially the teaching of Mr. Camping. God had opened up the necessary Bible helps, like interlinear Bibles and concordances, so the individual could do his own homework and check out the things that God was saying about the Sunday Sabbath. It is the word “sabbaton.” It is here in the Greek, but we were never taught this during the church age. But at the time of the end, we were taught from verses like Matthew 28:1 that (literally) said, “at the end of the sabbaths as it began to dawn toward the first of the sabbaths.” We see Sunday the Sabbath. Or, we saw so many other things from the doctrines God was opening up, and now the people of God could see it for themselves, in the perfect timing of God. He reveals and unseals truths in His Word as He prepares His people to receive it apart from the “under shepherds,” the pastors who had been abusing the flock and feeding themselves of the flock rather than feeding the flock.
So God made these preparations for His eternal church. And when we say, “eternal church,” we are making a (Biblical) distinction. You see, when the Bible tells us that the gates of hell will not prevail against the “church,” we have to ask the question, “Which church?” I will read that, in Matthew 16:18-19:
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Many churches, especially the Catholic Church, like to point to this and say, “Peter was the first pope, and upon Peter, the pope, was the church build.” But, no, that is not possible. The Greek word “Peter” is “Petros,” and when it says, “That thou art Peter, and upon this rock,” the word “rock” is “petra,” not “Petros” or “Peter,” but it is “petra,” and that “rock” can only be Christ. He is the foundation – no one else. There is none other foundation possible. So a church that thinks they are the foundation has already gone astray and lost sight of the truth. And, of course, if they consider themselves to be the “rock” upon which the church is built, then all kinds of other error will come in, and that is exactly what has happened. So the corporate churches misunderstand, and they think that they are the “rock” that God built His church upon and that the gates of hell will not prevail against them, despite the fact that the Catholic Church as been apostate for hundreds and hundreds of years, as well as so many other denominations. Many churches have “come and gone.” The churches in the book of Revelation came onto the scene and then disappeared. How is it that these churches were overcome and have not prevailed?
You see, it just does not fit at all when you try to define the “church” as the corporate church. Satan and his forces have often overcome churches and congregations. We just witnessed that during the Great Tribulation period when Satan was loosed and came against the camp of the saints and overcame them (all of them). He took his seat as “the man of sin,” sitting in the temple or church, corporately, showing himself that he is God.
So, this verse in no way applies to the corporate church, but it does apply to the eternal, invisible, spiritual church that consists of all God’s elect that Christ was building whenever anyone became saved and was added as a “living stone” to that house of God, the eternal church. And all through the centuries of the church age, whenever someone was truly saved, they were built upon Christ and added to the living stones of the eternal structure of that glorious eternal church. But as far as the corporate churches, they had their time for 1,955 years, from 33 A. D. to 1988, and then God judged them, and the earthly house of our tabernacle was thrown down, as it says in the Bible. You may not be aware that this statement was made in 2Corinthians 5:1:
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved…
And the Greek word translated as “dissolved” is the same Greek word translated as “thrown down” in Matthew 24:2:
There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
This is describing the judgment of God on the corporate church when the Holy Spirit left the midst of the churches and congregations of the world, and Satan entered into them, and that was the end of the corporate churches. That was the fall of the church. So, here in 2Corinthians 5:1, it says, “For we know,” and that can only refer to the church that consists only of God’s true elect people. Again, referring to the “tabernacle” as the corporate church, it says in 2Corinthians 5:1:
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
This is the reason why the elect true believers…and we have to differentiate between the true elect that God has saved and the professed true believers or those who think they are saved. And both the wheat and the tares that were growing together in the congregations heard the message that the church age was over, and then God commanded that we were to depart out of the midst and flee to the mountains (to God through the Bible). We, the elect true believers, know that our earthly house was thrown down and not one stone was left upon another. However, we are part of a greater structure, an eternal building made without hands; that is, it is spiritual and invisible and, yet, it cannot be destroyed. It cannot be thrown down. It will go on forever and ever into eternity future. We know that, and that gave us the strength and confidence and security to say, “Lord, although this is uncomfortable, and we enjoyed our time in the corporate church, yet we know we must obey you and come out.” And the people of God did, because we had that confidence that the end of the corporate church and our membership there did not mean the end of our relationship with God. We knew that we had that connection through Christ, and that His blood had been shed for us, so there was no need for us to think that we must partake of grape juice in order to bring that to remembrance. We know we have been baptized with the Holy Spirit and washed spiritually from our sins, so there is no need for us to be disturbed because there can no longer be the ceremonial law of water baptism.
But, you see, these things did trouble and disturb the unregenerate professed Christian, and they could not separate from the corporate entity because their trust, security, strength and comfort and their very relationship with God was all bound up with the outward representation of the local church. And to separate from that, they could not do, because they did not have a genuine spiritual connection to God. They did not have the strength or the confidence that they had a “building made without hands, eternal in the heavens.” So they determined they would stay there, saying, “This is all foolishness! This is all heresy!” And they refused it.
This is what we have to understand when we see Jacob entering into a marriage relationship with Rachel and, yet, he is also going to be in a marriage relationship with Leah. God enter an actual marriage with national Israel, and then He divorced Israel. There were reasons for that, but He never entered into a marriage relationship with the corporate churches in that sense. However, the relationship with Israel does typify the churches, and there is an extremely close relationship between God and those in the churches and congregations that are “near” marriage, but not an actual marriage. So I think we can see that idea with Jacob marrying both Leah and Rachel.
But we will have to discuss this more when we get together in our next Bible study.