Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight, is study #15 of Genesis, chapter 15 and we are going to begin by reading Genesis 15:7:

And he said unto him, I am JEHOVAH that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.

I will stop reading there. We have seen that God, indeed, had brought Abram out of the land of the Chaldees, as it said back in Genesis 11:28:

And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

Then it said in Genesis 11:31:

And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.

It was sort of a process and from Haran they proceeded into the land of Canaan. But Abram was originally from Ur of the Chaldees. It says in Nehemiah 9:7-8:

Thou art JEHOVAH the God, who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham; And foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give it, I say, to his seed, and hast performed thy words; for thou art righteous:

God chose Abram and Abram is a picture of the elect of God in some cases. And, of course, the elect are those chosen by God to salvation.

In the New Testament, it says in Acts 7:2-4:

And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.

The land “wherein ye now dwell” is the land of Canaan. Remember, Terah (Abram’s father) had Abram when he was 130 years old. We spent some time when we went through those verses and noted how that tied in with the age of the earth at the time of the end of 13,000+ years. It all relates to Abram who was born in Ur of the Chaldees and, of course, that is Babylon.

The word “Ur” is a Hebrew word, Strong’s #218, that is identical to Strong’s #217, a word that is translated as “fire” in a few places, but we will look at one place we are very familiar with in Isaiah 24:15:

Wherefore glorify ye JEHOVAH in the fires, even the name of JEHOVAH God of Israel in the isles of the sea.

The word “fires” is a word that is related to the word for “Urim,” as when the priests had Urim and Thummim. It identifies with fire and fire identifies with judgment. It says in Ezekiel 5:2:

Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city…

Again, fire expresses the wrath of God. So, we could say the “fire” of Chaldees is synonymous with Babylon. In 2Kings, chapter 5 we have a chapter that goes in to detail about the destruction of Jerusalem at the hand of the Babylonians and the king of Babylon. It says in 2Kings 25:1-6:

And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he, and all his host, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it; and they built forts against it round about. And the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. And on the ninth day of the fourth month the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. And the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king’s garden: (now the Chaldees were against the city round about:) and the king went the way toward the plain. And the army of the Chaldees pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all his army were scattered from him. So they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment upon him.

Here, it was the Babylonians and the king of Babylon that laid siege to the city of Jerusalem. We read, interchangeably, of the army of Babylon and the army of the Chaldees because they are one and the same. The Babylonians are the Chaldees. It says in 2Kings 25:10-11:

And all the army of the Chaldees, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down the walls of Jerusalem round about. Now the rest of the people that were left in the city, and the fugitives that fell away to the king of Babylon, with the remnant of the multitude, did Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carry away.

Then it says in 2Kings 10:13:

And the pillars of brass that were in the house of JEHOVAH, and the bases, and the brasen sea that was in the house of JEHOVAH, did the Chaldees break in pieces, and carried the brass of them to Babylon.

Who destroyed the city of Jerusalem? The Babylonians did, but it is the army of the Chaldees that is in view as they destroy the various parts of the city and bringing the spoil to their home city of Babylon. There is no difference in the Bible between a Chaldean and a Babylonian. Well, let me say that again, because a Chaldean may be a specific tribe or people group within the overall kingdom of Babylon, but the way God uses these names is the same. He can speak of the Chaldeans and their army destroying Jerusalem or He can make the statement that the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. You see, there is no difference.

Let us look at one verse. It says in 2Kings 10:24:

And Gedaliah sware to them, and to their men, and said unto them, Fear not to be the servants of the Chaldees: dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon; and it shall be well with you.

They would be servants to the Chaldees and servants to the king of Babylon. Again, it is synonymous – there is no difference.

This helps us when we find the name “Chaldea” or “the land of the Chaldees,” as we find in these early chapters. The land of Abram’s nativity was Ur of the Chaldees. Abram was a Babylonian and he lived in the land of Babylon. He was born there and grew up there and he spent many years there. Then God called him out of Babylon. Once we say it that way, then we can see the significance of it in relationship to other scriptures and things we have learned about the time of the Great Tribulation and the Day of Judgment. Remember, God commanded the Jews to go into captivity to Babylon and that was a picture of coming out of the apostate corporate church and going out into the world ruled over by Satan (typified by King Nebuchadnezzar). Babylon typified the world, the kingdom of Satan. That is where Abram began, just like us and just like every sinner. We are all children of wrath, even as others. So, Abram grew up in the “fires” or in Ur of the Chaldees, the land under the wrath of God. Again, God’s wrath is typified by fire and abides upon the sinner all the days of their lives.

Abram grew up like all other people, unsaved and subject to the wrath of God, but then God commanded him to come out of “Babylon.” He did. Again, he came out in stages until, finally, he entered into the land of Canaan.

So, we can see various pictures in this. One picture is the salvation of the soul when we are in the world and God saves us. We had previously been captive to sin and to Satan in the kingdom of darkness, a bondservant in the lowest dungeon. Then Christ saved us through His Word and translated us out of the kingdom of darkness, Babylon, and into the kingdom of His dear son. We are translated into the land of Canaan, which typifies the kingdom of God.

That is one level of understanding, but there is another meaning. As we approached the time of the end, God commanded His people to come out of the churches and congregations and to go to Babylon (the world), so that does not seem to fit the scenario of God calling Abram out of Babylon to go to Canaan.

But there is a third way that Babylon and the land of Canaan fit and that is when God completed His salvation program of saving all the elect or all the seed. We were all in Ur of the Chaldees or Babylon, but once God saved all His people, He brought us out as one “body,” the whole company of the elect, that left Babylon in a spiritual sense. We have not gone anywhere (until we reach the last day), but we have left the kingdom of Satan and entered into the glorious land of the kingdom of God, while still remaining on this earth. We see this figure, for instance, with deliverance of Israel out of Egypt. God delivered all Israel out of the land of Egypt and Egypt was a similar picture to Babylon, with the evil Pharaoh ruling over Egypt. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt, serving an evil king, with Pharaoh as a type of Satan and with the Israelites in bondage to sin and Satan until God delivered them. With the picture of the exodus, there was a complete deliverance of all Israel and they came out of Egypt.

We never think of that as a picture of leaving the world. You know, some people say that in regard to the idea of the elect coming out of Babylon and they say you cannot go “out of the world” unless it is the end of the world, but that is not necessarily true. Regarding Egypt, a type and picture of the kingdom of Satan, God typified Israel as the elect coming out of Egypt and then traveling during the wilderness sojourn for forty years until they entered the land of Canaan. We could say it was an “intermediate stage.” They were no longer in Egypt, but they were not yet in the land of Canaan; there was a forty-year period of severe trials and testing. I do not know how that can be, but because God has saved all His elect that were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, it is as though we have all been delivered out of Egypt and, yet, we have not entered immediately into the new heaven and new earth, as represented by the land of Canaan.

There must be a trial period and the Bible also refers to this as the elect appearing before the judgment seat of Christ. Of course, it does not use the word “elect” in that verse in 1Corinthians, chapter 5, but it used the plural pronoun “we,” which can only refer to the elect throughout that chapter. During this appearing (or being “made manifest”) before the judgment seat, we have not yet entered into heaven, but we are not in the same spiritual condition that had existed previously in history. It is a special “epoch” or period of time that God has designed for this prolonged period of Judgment Day. This was in view with the historical occurrence of Israel coming out of Egypt and the special circumstances God developed to try the Israelites. God has done the same thing, spiritually, at the time of the end. He saved all the elect He planned to save and, therefore, we have been delivered as one whole body of Christ out of the land of Babylon and, yet, there is a prolonged Judgment Day before we can enter into the Promised Land, the new heaven and new earth.

Historically, we know from the Bible that the fall of Babylon happened after seventy years of Tribulation was completed, indicating that Babylon’s fall (the rule of the kingdom of Satan) would collapse after the 23-year Great Tribulation period. That did happen on May 21, 2011 and, following that, it says in Revelation 18:4:

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

At this point, after the fall of Babylon, the command was issued, “Come out of her, my people.” We sometimes mistake this for the (earlier) command to come out of the churches and for good reason because the churches and congregations did come under of the authority of Babylon and became like a province of Babylon. But, more specifically, when God speaks of the fall of Babylon and then makes the command to come out, He has in view all the elect leaving spiritual captivity. No – we have not yet entered into the new creation that God will create on the last day. Again, there is an “intermediate stage” in which the manifestation of judgment must take place. However, all the elect have come out of Babylon (the world).

Let us look at Isaiah, chapter 48. We have looked at this before, but I think it is the best example of how God connects the coming out of Egypt with the coming out of Babylon. It says in Isaiah 48:20:

Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, JEHOVAH hath redeemed his servant Jacob.

We see the going forth from Babylon tied to the redemption of “Jacob.” Jacob is a figure of the elect. Then it says in Isaiah 48:21:

And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.

In verse 20, God was speaking about going out of Babylon and then in verse 21 He is referring to some historical events that took place after coming out of Egypt, not Babylon. How can God do that? How can He join the two together? It is because they both typify the same thing: deliverance from sin and Satan and God nourishing His people, spiritually, providing for their spiritual hunger and thirst through salvation. So, God can speak of the going forth of Babylon and connect it in the next breath, so to speak, to historical circumstances that took place during the coming out of Egypt. They figure the same thing.

We must be careful. Sometimes we just want a “quick verse” when people ask us where God says in the Bible to come out of the churches and we point to Revelation 18, verse 4, but a much better verse would be in Luke 21 where God said, “Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out,” or Matthew 24 where God said, “Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.”

These are much more definite, whereas Revelation 18, verse 4 has accompanying information that can refer to something else at a later point in time, the completion of God’s salvation program and the coming out of all the elect from the kingdom of Satan.

Let us go back to Genesis 15 and I will read Genesis 15:8-11:

And he said, Lord JEHOVAH, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not. And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away.

This is a very interesting passage. Abram is asking the Lord a question: “Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” God had just told him that He brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees to give him this land to inherit it. In answering him, God told him to take a heifer, a she goat and a ram and a turtledove and a pigeon and divide them and lay the pieces against each other. We wonder how taking these animals and dividing three of them in half and laying them next to each other can answer that question.

Lord willing, we will look at that when we get together in our next Bible study.