Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #28 of Genesis, chapter 21. We will read Genesis 21:20-21:
And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.
In our last study, we were looking at Paran. It always helps for us to go over some things again. At the time when Miriam was shut out of the camp for seven days, the people of Israel did not journey until she was brought back in again.
By the way, that is very odd because the “cloud” had departed from the tabernacle, and whenever that happened, the people of Israel were supposed to get up and follow it, immediately. But, in this case, because of Miriam’s situation and condition, “they journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again.” Then remember that it said: “And afterward the people removed from Hazeroth, and pitched in the wilderness of Paran.” That is the reason we came to these verses, because we were looking at the wilderness of Paran.
We also saw in Numbers 33 that Hazeroth was the thirteenth encampment. It is very interesting. Again, it had said in Numbers 12:10:
And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow…
Here, the cloud had departed, and Israel was to follow, but they did not follow. We are told that they journeyed not until Miriam was brought in again, so there was a seven-day delay. It happened at the camp of Hazeroth, which was the thirteenth encampment which ties in with the 13,000th year of earth’s history.
Someone may be listening to our studies just to criticize, because they do not have ears to hear. (I am sorry to say that, but that is the case with many natural-minded people.) They might say, “Oh, the thirteenth encampment, so you tie that to thirteen thousand years? Yeah – right.” Of course, they will not bother to search any further after their natural reaction to dismiss and belittle it, but they do not know the Bible and how God uses numbers in the Bible.
For instance, in the book of Daniel in a chapter dealing with the Great Tribulation, God lists musical instruments. One time He listed six musical instruments; a second time He listed six musical instruments; a third time He listed six musical instruments; a fourth time He listed five musical instruments. The total is 23. It is dealing with the Great Tribulation and is identified in the Bible with the number “23.” The actual timeline of the Great Tribulation was 23 years. Or, the Bible gives a total of three kings over Israel when Israel was still one nation, before they had broken up to form 10 tribes in the North and the tribe of Judah in the South. There was Saul, David and Solomon, followed by how many kings in the North over the 10 tribes? There were 20 kings, plus the three kings they began with, for a total of 23 kings. After 23 kings, what happened? The Assyrians took over the 10 tribes and destroyed them and they never existed again as the nation of God. And what about Judah in the South? After the three kings over the united Israel, there reigned 20 kings over Judah. During the reign of the 23rd king (which I think was Zedekiah), they were destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 B. C. and taken captive. God cursed the line of the kings and there would be no king that reigned over Israel until the Lord Jesus Christ came as “the king of kings.” So, there were 23 kings in the North and then came destruction and judgment. There were 23 kings in the South, and then came destruction and judgment. Is this a coincidence, or is God emphasizing a truth about the number “23”?
We see the same thing regarding the number “13.” Jacob came out of the land of Canaan at the age of 130, and that number is “10 x 13.” When he left Canaan and came into Egypt, we know he was “130,” because God made a point to cause the Pharaoh to ask Jacob how old he was, and he told him that he was 130 years old. It was at a point that identifies with the time of the end, the Great Tribulation. Acts 7 identifies that seven-year famine as “great tribulation.” So, Jacob was 130 when he entered into Egypt and came under the care and protection of Joseph. And how old was Joseph at that exact time? He was 39 years old, which is “3 x 13,” representing the purpose of God for the end of the world. The 130 years is “10 x 13,” representing the completeness of God regarding the end of the world. There are many more instances in the Bible indicating the relationship of the number “13” to the end of the world.
The year 1988 was the 13,000th year of earth’s history and the time the end of the world began as judgment began at the house of God; the church age came to an end. The churches and congregations, typified by the “court” in the house of God, came under judgment, as we read in Revelation 11:2:
But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
The “court” was given over to the Gentiles. The language is unmistakable. We have confirmed this many times in our Bible studies, as we went through the book of Revelation. It describes the judgment on the house of God, the corporate church. But, here, it is described as the “court” that is without and it was given to the Gentiles to be tread under foot forty and two months, typifying the Great Tribulation period. Why is that significant? It is because the Hebrew word translated as “Hazeroth,” the thirteenth encampment, is a word that means “court.” It is the same word we find used dozens of times to describe the court o the tabernacle in the wilderness and the court Solomon built when he constructed the temple about 480 years later. The foundation of the temple was laid and then the temple was later built.
So, Hazeroth has everything to do with the outward representation of the house of God. It was the “court” without, so God is indicating it is not the spiritual house consisting only of His elect, but it is the outer “court” or the outward representation of His house. It was Hazeroth where Miriam was leprous, and the cloud departed, almost simultaneously. The “cloud” was a picture of God being in the midst of Israel, just as the Spirit of Christ was in the congregations for the entire church age of 1,955 years. But then His Spirit departed out of the churches when judgment began at the house of God. The “daily” was taken away, which represents the Light of God Himself, and the abomination of desolation was set up. Satan was loosed and took his seat in the temple showing himself that he is God. It was simultaneous.
Interestingly, when God did this back in 1988, the elect people of God did not know immediately what He had done. We were unaware of it for several years, even though God had been opening the Scriptures back then, but we knew that the light of the Gospel was going out. We knew that Satan seemed to be gaining victory over the churches. I was around back then, and at that time we thought there was still a remnant of faithful churches. We just thought the light of the Gospel would go out, more and more, until it would be extinguished on the very last day. We thought God would continue to use the churches, but that was wrong. From the very beginning (in 1988), God had departed from the midst of the churches and, yet, we remained behind for several years until about 2001 when the Lord opened up more information to indicate that the judgment was not against just 99% of the churches, but it was 100% of the churches.
I remember that in 2001. I was in a little church called Delaware Bible Church, and we were trying to remove our “high places.” We thought at that time if we operated as a church, we must remove the “high places.” Not long after we formed as a church, Mr. Camping came out with the study about the end of the church age. I remember we went to a Bible conference in Tuscarora and I had a friend sitting in the seat in front of me. We were listening to Mr. Camping talk about the end of the church age and how the elect should not be part of a corporate church any longer, and my friend looked back at me and said, “Sorry, Chris,” because he knew we had just formed our church a few months earlier. At that time I was resistant, and I did not understand. I was thinking that Mr. Camping was still in a church because (I think) the Alameda Bible Church was still a church at that time, so I was confused. That was the most miserable Bible Conference I had ever attended because I was struggling with this issue and fighting against what Mr. Camping was saying; I would ask question after question. On the last day of the conference, he said to me, “You are desperately trying to disprove this.” It was uncomfortable, because I had heard him say that so many times to people during the Open Forum. People called him and when he would say that to other people I would agree because these people were desperately trying to prove their unbiblical points, like free will, and so forth. So, that really struck me. By God’s grace, I did not continue to resist, as many do, and I did not go to the Bible to just try to disprove it while pretending to study the Bible.
You know, the Bible speaks of the Bereans when they would hear things they had never heard before and they would search the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were NOT so. Did I just give a true Biblical quote? No – I did not. What does it say in Acts 17? I changed a word and I am sure you caught it, but it says in Acts 17:10-11:
And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
They searched to see whether those things were so. By the way, the word “searched” can also be translated as “discerned,” as it is in 1Corinthians 2. So, they discerned the Scriptures daily to see if those things were so. You see, that is a positive searching of the Bible. The Bereans listened to what they were hearing and then searched it out. But even in Thessalonica, they just dismissed it out of hand: “I do not want to hear that.” Then they stopped their ears. That is the natural-minded reaction of the unsaved. Remember that Christ is the one who gives us the ability to hear His voice and discern His voice. The Bible says, “…and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.” And it says, “A wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.” That was the nature of the Bereans and the new heart God had equipped them with, so when they heard something, they turned to the Bible: “This is what I heard. Let me see if it is true.” They did not approach it negatively: “This is what I heard. Let me go to the Bible to try to prove it false.” That is the normative reaction of 99.9% of the people when they hear a truth from the Bible. That was the reaction of those in the churches: “Let me find a verse that will disprove what you are saying about the end of the church age and about Christ paying for sin at the foundation of the world. Let me find a verse that proves that May 21, 2011 was not Judgment Day, and that the Biblical calendar of history is not Biblical. Let me find a verse that will disprove that the Great Tribulation has already happened.” They are negative, negative, negative. They are natural-minded, critically-minded individuals with a negative mindset that search the Bible only to disprove these things.
Here we are today at EBible Fellowship, and we are open to receive your questions, comments and even your criticisms. We are here to listen to whatever verse in the Bible you may have found. How many calls do we get where someone has found a verse to prove that the church age is not over; to prove that it is not Judgment Day; to prove the door of salvation is not shut; or to prove that God is still saving people? We get very few calls like that. And we should not think it is for lack of trying, but they are not searching in a good way like the Bereans, but they are searching like critics. It was like the man that used to call Mr. Camping on the Open Forum and he would say, “Mr. Camping, on such-and-such a date, you said this.” Of course, he was listening, but then he would immediately go to the Bible to prove that what Mr. Camping had taught was false. We never saw any improvement or progression of growing in the knowledge of God with that caller, although God could have later had mercy on him.
But, you see, we do not see progression in Bible knowledge with the natural-minded person because they are naturally-minded and not spiritually-minded. They are not born again. So, when they go to the Bible they cannot successfully argue against these things.
When Stephen was moved by God to recount Israel’s history, he brought up Scriptures that confronted the natural-minded people of Israel as being unsaved, even though they were physical descendants of Abraham. It says in Acts 7:51-58:
Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, And cast him out of the city, and stoned him:
I do not know where it is, but there is a verse that said they could not dispute or resist the things Stephen was saying. We see that they resisted him by killing him, but that is not what God meant when He said they could not dispute or resist the wisdom Stephen spoke with, which means they could not use the Bible to rightly dispute it. They could not rationally and kindly discuss the Word of God by saying, “No – Stephen. You are incorrect. Let us show you the correct way to understand these Scriptures.” Obviously, they could not do that because Stephen was correctly discerning the Scriptures. All they could do was to stop their ears and violently stop his voice to shut him up.
That is the problem with natural-minded individuals. They cannot properly use the Bible, but they search the Scriptures in a negative way, so they do not have to listen to the truth of the Word of God.
I went off on a tangent, but all this relates to the end of the church age, as God speaks of Hazeroth. God left the corporate church, but the people of God were not aware of it initially and we did not immediately follow. To say it another way, just as the cloud departed off the tabernacle of Hazeroth, the thirteenth encampment, which means the “court,” and that identifies with the corporate church. They did not leave immediately, but they did eventually leave, just like God’s elect eventually left the churches and congregations and went out into the world, the wilderness of Paran.
We do not have time to get into further discussion on the wilderness of Paran, but we will do that when we get together in our next Bible study, Lord willing.