Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight, is study #35 of Genesis, chapter 14 and we are continuing to look at Genesis 14:18-20:

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.

I will stop reading there. Once again, we have spent a good deal of time on this passage and on the entire chapter. I am glad we are doing so because it is a chapter we were not that familiar with, but we have now become very familiar with it as we have gone, hour after hour, through these verses and carefully reading and studying the words God has given us here. We have found a good amount of Biblical truth that is significant for our present time of Judgment Day.

In our last study, we saw that Melchizedek was declared the “priest of the most high God.” We spent some time thinking about that name for God as “the most high God” or the highest God.

It also says of Melchizedek in Genesis 14:19:

And he blessed him…

Melchizedek blessed Abram. Just consider what we learned in Matthew 25 in the parable of the sheep and the goats. The sheep were placed on the right and they were blessed; the goats were on the left and they were cursed. Judgment Day is a time when God confirms the blessing that had been previously bestowed through salvation upon His people. It is the time for the granting of the blessing of the firstborn. Remember when Jacob and Esau came to their father for blessing. Through the circumstances orchestrated by Jacob and his mother (and God was behind it all), the older twin brother Esau did not receive the blessing, but the blessing went to Jacob. Isaac blessed Jacob and did not bless Esau. We know that Jacob and Esau are a picture of the elect and the non-elect. God said He loved Jacob and He hated Esau.

Making known the blessing and the revealing of which ones are blessed and which ones are cursed is one of the characteristics of Judgment Day, because that period of time saw the completion of the separation of the wheat and the tares. The wheat and tares had grown together in the congregations throughout the church age, when God had prohibited the rooting up of the tares least some of the wheat also be rooted up. Both grew together until “harvest,” and the harvest was the time of the end of the world or the end of the age, which was the end of the church age and the beginning of the Great Tribulation. The Lord opened the Scriptures to reveal the end of the church age and His command for His people to come out of the midst of the churches served as the mechanism to separate the wheat from the tares. Of course, not everyone that came out was “wheat,” but all the wheat did come out and that was the important thing. Finally, at the completion of the Great Tribulation at the end of the 23 years, the separation was complete. The wheat had all come out of the churches and the tares had all remained behind. Again, there was the matter of some “tares,” unsaved individuals, having come out along with the wheat, but it was a much smaller number of tares than those that had dwelt with the believers in the congregations. When we look at the corporate church, it numbers almost two billion people and the number of elect individuals that came out were just a remnant of that total, so that was a major operation that God performed to separate the wheat from the tares.

Yes, some tares did come out, but God had in reserve another process He would put in motion during Judgment Day. The parable of the sheep and the goats is applicable to Judgment Day, whereas the parable of the wheat and tares had application to the end of the church age and it was carried out over the course of the Great Tribulation. By the conclusion of the Great Tribulation, the separation of the wheat and tares was completed in the churches. We should not think that God is completing the separation of the wheat and tares during Judgment Day. We should look at it as the separation of the sheep and the goats, especially since Christ in John, chapter 21 emphasized very strongly, “Feed my sheep.” Three times He said it, to indicate the purpose of God for the prolonged period of Judgment Day that started on May 21, 2011 and will go until the end or the last day. It is a time of feeding sheep and it is a time when the Lord continues to open His word. In Romans 2, verse 5 Judgment Day is called “the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” The Scriptures that are continuing to come forth in the Day of Judgment will continue to separate and make the distinction between the saved and the unsaved.

The separation is continuing along the same lines. How did God make distinction between the wheat and tares during the second part of the Great Tribulation when He commanded His people to depart out of the churches? He did so through the opening of the Scriptures and through the revealing of true doctrine that had been sealed up until the time of the end. It was brought forth when the eyes of God’s people were opened to these things and they began to declare it, but the tares among them did not understand. I think it is why God says in Daniel, chapter 12 in the context of sealing the words until the time of the end, in Daniel 12:9-10:

And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.

Primarily, we have related this verse to timing, the timeline of history and the time of the Great Tribulation and the time of Judgment Day, which the unsaved within the churches would not understand; that is why they continued to say, “No man knows the day or hour.” This is a large part of it, but it is also related to all the information that God has opened to our understanding. You know, it was not the timing of the Great Tribulation or the timing of Judgment Day, May 21, 2011, that caused most people to turn back, but it was the doctrine about the end of the church age – they did not like it. They were too attached to their churches and congregations.

The doctrine of “hell” also took its toll and it made some people very angry. They were so furious when this information came forth. When this information was revealed, I remember one individual in our fellowship that had been coming to our fellowship for a few years and, seemingly, in agreement with everything. We were looking at what the Bible says about “hell” with open eyes and we started to examine many things in the Bible that prove that there is no placed called “Hell.” This man was sitting in the audience of our fellowship and, literally, his face turned red with anger. He was so mad. That was the last time I ever saw him. He left with his wife and they never came back. They had a farm with a big barn and they had been keeping reams of paper for us because we had been printing a lot of tracts and we had a whole skid of paper. I have forgotten the details, but he did not want to give us our paper because he was so angry. That doctrine of “hell” was the division.

The Bible speaks of being offended for the Word’s sake. The Word of God is a sword – it cuts and pierces to the heart of man. God knows mankind better than we know ourselves. He knows the proud heart of the natural-minded individual. He knows the heart of stone and the desperately wicked and deceitful heart that lies within all unsaved people. Outwardly, they may be very nice, very pleasant and very kind. You can enjoy speaking with them, perhaps, but God looks upon the heart. He knows what lies deep within, but no man knows. Because God knows the heart, He knew the wheat from the tares and He was able to reserve a great amount of information that was specifically designed to evoke emotional responses within people. They were very invested in the doctrines they chose to believe, whether it be their faith in their church or whether it be the teaching of eternal torment in a place called Hell. I believe God kept these things in reserve because He knew these things would be major “tests” for many people and it would reveal the true character of certain individuals and it would separate the wheat from the tares and the sheep from the goats. It is the Word of God that is doing it. It was not Mr. Camping at Family Radio during the Great Tribulation and it is not EBible Fellowship now, but it is the Word of God that is the offence. These doctrines were designed by God for the precise purpose of touching the proud heart of the natural man, so it is a different thing with different people because some people are more attached more to some of their beliefs than others. For some, the doctrine of the church age got to them early on. For others, it was the doctrine regarding “hell.” For others, it was the doctrine of when the payment for sin took place. They cannot understand. They do not see it and it makes them angry or upset. There was a point to which they would go and no further.

For the child of God, it has to do with what the Bible says and what the Bible confirms, as we compare Scripture with Scripture and the Holy Ghost teaches. It has to do with what the Holy Ghost is teaching and not with what Calvin or Luther taught or what a church teaches or what people wrote down in a confession and what became a creed. To find if the Bible teaches something, we search to see if these things are so. We search the Scriptures and we really dig into them. We looked to see if the church age was over, especially since we heard it through a faithful ministry that had a high regard for the Word of God, the Bible, and rejected everything but the Bible. Then we had to listen and check out what was being said. That is what God calls all His people in Christendom to do – check it out to see if it is so. Examine whether, or not, the Bible proves a teaching. As we have done so, we found that, yes, it was true that the church age was over. Yes, it was true that the Bible teaches annihilation and not a place called Hell. Yes, it was so that Christ paid for sin at the foundation of the world and His going to the cross was a demonstration of it. The Bible confirms these things.

If God wants to make a change in His program or hold back truth until the time of the end, then very well. The Bible teaches that He did so, does it not? Daniel, chapter 12 indicates there were things sealed until the time of the end. It is God’s salvation program. It is His Word. It is His Gospel and the Gospel of God is determined by the Bible, and nothing else. Although we might be sympathetic to a degree with individuals that are rejecting these teachings, they are rejecting the counsel of God. They are rejecting the Word of God, the Bible. Their issue is with God, who opened up the Scriptures. God takes full responsibility for the things that come forth during that “hour” of Great Tribulation, as it says in Mark 13:11:

But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.

And how does the Holy Ghost speak? It is through the Scriptures, as we compare Scripture with Scripture and the Holy Ghost teacheth what His Word speaks. As a child of God, we study the Bible and we do comparison of Scriptures; we check it out to see if it is so and then we declare it. That is how the Holy Ghost “speaks” through His people, as we follow the proper methodology as laid out in the Bible. It is our physical mouths that share these things, but it is not we that speak, but the Holy Ghost that speaks. So, when people reject these doctrines, they are rejecting God’s Word, just as much as anyone that refuses to read the Bible. An atheist can say, “I am an atheist. I do not believe in God and I do not believe the Bible is the Word of God.” They have rejected the Word of God equally as much as an individual that resists the speaking of the Holy Ghost when they do not want to hear a certain teaching of the Holy Ghost. They are just like the Jews of old when God made a change in program concerning the Messiah; the Jews refused Him and they literally put their hands to their ears so they would not hear. Yes, I suppose that there is a difference between someone who stops their ears so they will not hear certain truths and an atheist that will believe nothing of the Bible, but it is still very similar.

When information about the end of the church age was coming forth from the Bible, some people outside the churches were fine with that; they were independent-minded people and they did not like the churches anyway. But they would have other tests, as God would open up other information designed to target the pride of their hearts and what resided within their hearts. He touched them with the doctrine of “hell” or the doctrine of the atonement having taken place at the foundation of the world or that spiritual judgement began on May 21, 2011. And, as we continue on in Judgment Day, the Lord continues to open the Scriptures and individuals, here and there, are rejecting it. Of course, it is less and less people because most the separation took place with the separation of the wheat and tares. And, yet, now there are still “hangers on.” They are individuals that are trying to maintain some semblance of faithfulness, but this is the time when God is putting the fire to all people to determine if they are “gold, silver precious stones” that will endure the flame or “wood, hay stubble” that will be burned up. They will not be able to endure because they will be burned up. There will be separation and ongoing division between the true believers and the ones that are not true believers. This is the characteristic of this entire period of time.