Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #32 of Genesis, chapter 21.  We will be reading Genesis 21:22-26:

And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech and Phichol the chief captain of his host spake unto Abraham, saying, God is with thee in all that thou doest: Now therefore swear unto me here by God that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son's son: but according to the kindness that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear. And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away. And Abimelech said, I wot not who hath done this thing: neither didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of it, but to day.

We were discussing in our last study Abimelech and his chief captain Phichol.  The name “Phichol” means “mouth of all,” which identifies with the unsaved.  We could say they are of one voice in agreement with Satan, as typified by Abimelech.  They spoke to Abraham saying, “God is with thee in all that thou doest.”  We looked at several places where the devils would acknowledge and recognize the Lord Jesus Christ as God and they even referred to Him as the Son of the most high God.  Therefore, we saw that Abimelech and Phichol are acknowledging Abraham as being a servant of God and that is in keeping with that same theme we find in the Bible.

I want to go to one other place before we move on.  We looked at some verses where the devils acknowledged Christ and how it had to do with being God Himself, but it is also the case that the devils acknowledge a servant of God, as we see in Acts 19:13-16:

Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

Again, we see the devils admitting that they know Jesus and they know Paul.  And the Apostle Paul is used in the Bible as a pattern of believers, so this is basically a statement from the enemy forces of the kingdom of God saying that they know the true God (Jesus) and they also can discern, at least to some degree, the true believers: “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?”  In other words, the seven sons of Sceva were not true believers.  In fact, the man possessed of demons then leaped on the seven sons: “And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.”   So, that is a very strong emphasis on these men being defeated by Satan and his devils. 

When the corporate churches were overrun by tares, the majority of people in the churches were tares, so Satan’s forces easily overcame them, especially when God departed out of the midst.  The natural-minded person that makes a profession of faith and, yet, he is not truly born again, is unable to overcome the wicked one.  We read in 1John about those that are sons of God or “young men,” and it says, “Ye have overcome the wicked one.”  The word “overcome” relates to faith, and it is through the faith of Christ that the wicked one has been overcome. 

Remember when the Lord Jesus Christ sent the seventy out, two by two, in Luke 10.  They returned, and it says in Luke 10:17-20:

And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.

This is a helpful principal that, sadly, those in the churches do not understand, and that is that when God is with His people as He was in the midst of the churches for a long time, there was victory.  The Gospel went forth conquering and to conquer.  There was a certain grudging respect of sorts from the world for those identified with God and His kingdom and His Word.  That certain degree of respect was completely lost when God departed out of the midst of the congregations.  The assault (of Satan) came against church, after church, after church, and the churches were beaten back.  The churches and the individuals remaining in the churches are fallen and they have submitted to the power of Satan and the power of the world.  They have not been steadfast in holding to the teachings of the Bible, but they retreated from the truth.  They will say things like, “If we say this, we might drive people out of our church.” 

But that is not the situation when the Lord is with His people and His Word – it is a conquering Word.  It very powerful, as we read in Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword.”  It is not the weak and ineffectual presentation the churches hold to, as they weaken the Word by using various versions of the Bible that are “watered down.”  Even if they had not done all that, it would be a weak message because God is no longer with them, but God is still with His people outside the churches.  As He called His people out of the churches, He moved us to send forth the Gospel of the Latter Rain and through that proclamation there was a mighty work of salvation performed by God in saving that great multitude across the faith of the earth.  There was also a powerful work by the Word of God as we proclaimed Judgment Day was coming on May 21, 2011 to all the nations and all the inhabitants of the earth.  The world heard this in a powerful way because that is what happens when God is with us and when He is the one behind us, orchestrating things as His people were in submission to His will and trying to be as faithful as possible to the things of the Bible.

In our verse, that is true of Abraham.  He was a true man of God.  He was an elect child of God, and God was with him.  And it was noticed.  It was observed.  You know, even the enemies of God and His people can see that God is with His people.  But what about professed Christians?  How did they know Paul, but they did not know the seven sons of Sceva?  The answer is that it is apparent in the doctrines that are believed and proclaimed and held.   Satan is the father of lies and for him to be such an excellent liar, he must know, intellectually, the true Gospel to a good extent.  If someone is holding to the true Gospel, Satan wants to move that person away from the true Gospel to a lie.  So, here is Paul and Paul did not go after the lies of Satan.  For a time, he was in Satan’s kingdom and under his power, along with many others in Israel.  He was a Pharisee zealously pursuing the sect of Christians, hailing men and women and casting them into prison.  But then God came to him and opened His eyes and gave Saul of Tarsus understanding of the truth.  He became Paul and he began to preach that truth, and Satan could observe that.  He certainly noticed the change in this man and how he now identified with the Lord Jesus, God Himself and the kingdom of heaven. 

So, too, he can know when someone is holding fast to the Word of God.  For example, you have a group of professed Christians and within that group there are a few that hold to the Bible, and the Bible alone.  (They do not just pay it “lip service,” but strongly hold to it and will  not listen to anyone coming with a vision or tongue.)  So, right away Satan can discern, even from his evil perspective: “Here are 100 professed Christians and I have no problem with most of them because they believe the Pope is in authority and speaks without error.  And there are these others that believe in tongues, dreams and visions and other charismatic leanings, and I have control over them.  And there are others that have another book, like the Book of Mormon.  And there are others that are Jehovah’s Witnesses and they deny that Christ is God, so I have control over them.” 

So, Satan can just narrow it down and narrow it down to a remnant, but that is not to say that he is 100% accurate in this assessment, but certainly when he narrows it down he reasons, “Well, there are these few people that hold to the Bible and they do not listen to anything additional and they do not subtract from it.  And look at how they interpret the Bible by comparing spiritual with spiritual and they are not going outside the Bible to listen to theologians, where I could have an influence.”  (Of course, this is speculation about how Satan could be viewing these things.)  Then Satan reasons, “But there are these people that are not going outside the Bible and they are not using their own minds to interpret the Bible.  Maybe I could influence them somehow if they would look out into the world and look at nations to define the anti-Christ – like Russia or the Catholic Church – but they do not, so it is very hard for me to deceive them.”   It would be much easier to deceive when people expand the authority of the Word of God outside the Bible, even if they expanded just a little bit.  That would give an opening for Satan to come in and deceive them and lead them away (from truth).  So, that means Satan can narrow it down when he tries to identify true believers. 

As I am thinking about this, this is the reason Satan could have focused his attention against a ministry like Family Radio at the time of the end.  He had already been given authority in the churches and the churches had “other gospels,” so it was very easy for him to influence them, plus he had his forces in many positions within them.  As far as the gospels that were being proclaimed, very few were sticking to the Bible and using the Bible as its own dictionary, comparing spiritual with spiritual and harmonizing any conclusions.  Therefore, he could come against the Family Radio ministry, knowing that God was with them.  God was with Mr. Camping and many of the people that listened to that ministry and supported that ministry as it sent forth the huge proclamation of the true Gospel during the Latter Rain.  It was a great tool in God’s hand to save the great multitude of people all over the earth.  Satan would have seen that he could not shut them down.  In fact, they were expanding at that time with more radio stations and other methods that allowed them to essentially reach the entire world.

So, this is probably accurate that Satan would have had a recognition of the true Gospel and where it was being proclaimed, rather than focusing on the masses of professed Christians that were themselves unsaved and already under his power and authority within the churches and congregations.  They were already deceived, and they would point their fingers at a faithful ministry and exclaim, “Heresy!  They are of the devil!”  But this was true of their own spiritual condition, since Satan had already taken over the corporate church.

Anyway, this is something we can see in this acknowledgment by Abimelech and Phichol that God was with Abraham.  It is revealing the mindset of Satan and some of the things he can understand about the spiritual situation in this world and who is on which side.

Let us go on in Genesis 21:23-24:

Now therefore swear unto me here by God that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son's son: but according to the kindness that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear.

Looking at this historically, it is understandable.  Abimelech did do Abraham a kindness earlier because he did not touch Sarah and he released and restored her to him, and he gave Abraham riches and allowed Abraham to dwell in his land.  He also realized that Abraham had a certain power because of his relationship to God, and that could be harmful to Abimelech, so he wanted Abraham to swear to him.  This is where the whole idea of a covenant comes in because “to swear” is related to that.  And Abraham said, “I will swear.”

Notice one of the things he wanted Abraham to swear: “Now therefore swear unto me here by God that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son's son.”  That is interesting.  We can see why Abraham would swear to that because it is not a problem for an elect child of God to swear not to deal falsely with someone.  It would be like saying, “Everything I am telling you about what the Bible says is true.”  We can be corrected by the Bible in our understanding, but I can tell you absolutely that the Bible is the Word of God, and God is the only God, and so forth.  We could say many things that are true and faithful.

I think we are going to stop here before getting into a further discussion about this.  Again, it is not an easy passage to understand, so we want to take our time.  Lord willing, we will continue in Genesis 21 when we get together in our next Bible study.