Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight, is study #2 of Genesis, chapter 15 and we are going to read Genesis 15:1-3:

After these things the word of JEHOVAH came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord JEHOVAH, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.

As we began to discuss in our last study, God came to Abram and the first thing He said was, “Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.” We began to look at what the Bible has to say about this command of God to His people to “fear not.” He personalized it for Abram, in this case, and we saw that God says the same thing to all the elect in Isaiah, chapter 41, where He said, “Fear not, thou worm Jacob…I will help thee…I will strengthen thee.” The Lord gives this command to all His people: “Fear not.”

Of course, it does not mean that we are not to fear God. We are told to fear God. It is not God that the commandment tells us not to fear, but we are not to fear man and the circumstances we find ourselves in while in this world. There are difficulties and troubles and afflictions, but we are to fear none of these things. “Fear not, Abram.” We spent some time looking at this and I want to spend some more time looking at what the Bible says about this in a specific case and we will see how it relates to the people of God today.

Let us go to Genesis chapter 46 where it talks about Jacob and a famine in the land and the Bible says that famine is a picture of the Great Tribulation. In the previous chapter, Joseph had revealed himself to his brothers and they went home to their father Jacob and told him that Joseph was alive and he is a lord over the land of Egypt. They told him that Joseph wanted his family to enter the land of Egypt where Joseph would provide for them and nourish them. It said in Genesis 45:25-28:

And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, And told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob’s heart fainted, for he believed them not. And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived: And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die.

Then it says in Genesis 46:1-4:

And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation: I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.

This was a very traumatic time for Jacob because he had lived in the Promised Land for quite a while. His father lived in the Promised Land and his father before him. God had given promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob regarding the land of Canaan, a picture or representation of the eternal new heaven and new earth. The land of Canaan had great significance for Jacob and his fathers before him for a couple of hundred years, but then God came to him and told him to leave the land of Canaan and to go down into Egypt. It was not an easy time for Jacob, so God, seeking to comfort and encourage him, said, “I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt.”

This relates to God’s end time judgment program because that famine is identified in Acts chapter seven as “great tribulation.” Jacob was aged 130 (10 x 13), which identifies with the time in the Biblical calendar of history when judgment would begin on the churches and congregations and that judgment would result in a “spiritual famine” of hearing the Word of the Lord in the churches, which the land of Canaan typified. So, Jacob could no longer stay in Canaan, a type and figure of the corporate church here. At the age of 130, he had to come out and he was drawn out because Joseph had revealed himself. And it was after the 13,000th year of earth’s history that God opened the Scriptures to reveal Christ and truths of His Word. Christ is the Word made flesh and the revealing of the things that had been sealed to the time of the end was typified by Joseph revealing his face and revealing his presence in Egypt and no longer within Canaan. He controlled the circumstances to get his brother Benjamin to Egypt and, finally, he revealed himself to his entire family so they would follow him into the land of Egypt where they would be provided for by Joseph throughout the remaining years of famine.

Again, Canaan typifies the corporate church and Egypt typifies the world and it is an historical parable that points to God’s command to His people to depart out of the midst of the churches and congregations and go out into the world and there serve and worship God and God would take care of His elect. So, this command to “fear not,” that was spoken to Jacob, is a command to the children of God in our circumstances at the end of time. God is encouraging and comforting His people, letting us know that we are protected by Him and we should not fear reviling and reproaches.

In 1Peter, chapter 4, God declares that judgment would begin at the house of God, as it says in 1Peter 4:17:

For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

Here, God is speaking of the time when judgment begins at the house of God and the Bible has locked in the beginning point of that judgment as May 21, 1988, the day before Pentecost. It was also the 13,000th anniversary of earth’s history and when Jacob went into Egypt at age 130 and left the land of Canaan, it was a picture of the spiritual famine that came upon the churches and congregations (as typified by Canaan) and the necessity for Christians to come out and go into the world. In the context leading up to verse 17, it says in 1Peter 4:14-17:

If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf. For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God…

God knew full well and in advance that He would open up this information by unsealing the Scriptures to reveal the end of the church age and He would open the eyes of His people to see His commands, like the command of Matthew 24 to flee to the mountains when we see the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place; or, in Luke 21 He commanded us to depart out of the midst. But, again, God knew that His people would obey Him because we have been given a new heart and a new spirit and God causes us to walk in His statutes. And when we would obey that command, God knew full well it would bring the reproach of men and, especially, the revilings of those that remained in the churches and congregations. Those in the churches felt “judged” because we were sharing this language about Satan ruling in the churches, the need to depart out and the fact that no one could be saved in the churches. It was very offensive to them, but it was not God’s people that were offending them; it was the Word of God itself. The attitude of the child of God is that if the Word of God is an offence, so be it. We cannot do anything about that. We ourselves should not be the offence. If people are offended by the things the Bible says, then, very well, that is how it must be. It was a very hard thing the Bible was declaring regarding the churches and who they were worshipping in their churches – it hit them hard. They responded with anger and they spoke evil of any that came with that message. There was severe reproach being laid upon the elect children of God that trusted the Bible and believed the Word of God and acted obediently by coming out of the churches and congregations. They would say to us, “You are heretics! You are of Satan.” Horrible things were being declared against us.

That is why God said, “Fear not, Jacob. Fear not to go down into Egypt.” Or, we could say, “Fear not, elect, to come out of the corporate church and go into the world. Yes, you will be reproached for the name of Christ and happy are ye.”

Again, it says, “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.” This is all involved with these words of God that were designed to strengthen and comfort and encourage the heart of the child of God to obey God and not to worry about man and his puny little revilings. Do not worry about the things man may say or do to try to hurt you. We are not to spend a second of our time on it, but we are to trust God: “Trust in JEHOVAH with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”

God will take care of you. He will watch out for you. He will protect you, just as He told Abram, “I am thy shield.” What does a shield do? Remember what it says in Ephesians, chapter 6 where the Lord lays out the armour of God that His people are to put on, spiritually, in order to stand in the evil day. He speaks of the “shield of faith” that is “able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” And that is very true!

You know, I remember this because I spent over 20 years of my life in the world and grew up in the world. I fully remember what it is to have a worldly mind and to think of things of the world. And I remember the fear that was in my mind. I do not know if it was in everyone’s mind, but in one way or another I think it is in the minds of all the unsaved people of the world to be concerned about “being accepted” and “being approved.” You want to be popular with them; that is, you want people to like you. And if you have done something wrong and for a day or a week you were disliked and on the outside, how uncomfortable it was! You just could not stand it. There was a fear of being cast out and being someone that is spoken badly of, so we try to adapt our behavior to be liked by our fellowman. No one wants to be reviled and have his name “evil spoken of.”

Today, if people attack me and, actually, it has been going on for many years now, with the things people say about me or write about me or insinuate about me. It is not just happening to me, but this is personal to me, so I can speak about it. If these things had been said about me before, it would have bothered me. But God gave me His Word and began to work on me and to teach me that I am to fear God and not man. What is man to be accounted thereof? His breath is in his nostrils. That is a paraphrase from Isaiah 2:22:

Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?

In other words, why is man such a big deal? What makes that man over there so important to you and so significant? Why does what he thinks hold sway over you? No matter how big or popular or talented that man is, compare that puny, finite little man to the Almighty God of the Bible, who you apparently have no problem disregarding. Again, this is what I had to learn over the course of time as the Lord was working in me and I was learning the Bible. At that time, I apparently did not fear God as much as I feared the opinion of my fellowman. And that ought not to be. As we learn more about God, we realize another thing we read in Isaiah. Isaiah is a good book to learn about who ought to be feared (God) and who ought not to be feared (man). It says in Isaiah 8:12-13:

Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. Sanctify JEHOVAH of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.

Again, it said in Isaiah 51:7-8:

Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation.

God is drawing the contrast. He is the one to be feared, not man. So, the child of God has to learn this. We learn this and sometimes we learn it because once we identify with the Word of God, reproach will follow and revilings will come, especially at the time of the end when God opened the Scriptures. The elect people of God rejoice in these truths and these wonderful things that came forth, but during the time of the Great Tribulation when we were still in the churches we realized that the professed Christians began to speak evil of these teachings and if we held to the teaching, they would speak evil of us.

After a while, however, there comes a point when the revilings of man just roll off our backs, like that old saying goes, “like water off a duck’s back.” We respond, “OK, you think I am a heretic. You think I am of Satan. Perhaps, you have even thrown a child of God out of the churches. You have officially declared him a heretic and exercised what you think is your authority and pronounced your edict against him. So, what?” It is the wrath of man and nothing more. And man is nothing. He is a little, tiny, finite creature and not even a good creature. He is a little, tiny, fallen creature. Why would I care what a man with a deceitful mind and heart thinks of me? While we try to always show respect, kindness and gentleness toward man and we would never put them down and call them names, it does not mean that we have to tremble every time they call us names or every time they pronounce their judgments against us. You see, it is like they are putting themselves in the place of God and they dare to pronounce condemnation and judgment against one of God’s elect and God will not have it. There is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. There is condemnation from man, but, again, I cannot emphasize this enough: So, what? It is nothing. It is nothing at all. It is only when we build up that man (whether it be a pastor or a person close to us) and we want that person to like us and appreciate us, but – no – this pertains to any man’s opinion and that is what it says in 1Corinthians, chapter 4 in the context of the mysteries of God. The mysteries of God are the hidden truths or parables in the Bible and it says in 1Corinthians 4:1-2:

Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.

God’s people are faithful stewards of the mysteries of the Word of God. It goes on to say in 1Corinthians 4:3:

But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.

He deems it a very small thing to be judged of man, but God’s judgment is big and it is all-important. Man’s judgment is typically perverted, distorted, wrong and insignificant. So, again, who cares?