Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #3 of Genesis, chapter 22. We will be reading Genesis 22:1-2:

And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

We are looking at what the Bible has to say about temptation. We started here in Genesis 22, and we saw that the Lord did tempt Abraham. I am using this as an occasion to spend some time looking at the Bible’s language regarding temptation, and the Bible has a lot to say about it. In the Lord’s Prayer, it said, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” That is, the prayer was that the evil day of judgment be far off, because it is an evil time for mankind. We also saw that the Bible speaks of a “time of temptation” in the parable of the sower that sowed the seed, in Luke, chapter 8. When we search the Bible, we came across a couple of statements in Psalm 95 and Hebrews 3 which identify a time period with “temptation.” It was called the “day of temptation” in both places, but it was 40 years long. So, we are investigating this and looking at this very closely because we have also learned – as we discussed last time – that the official judgment upon the churches began at the house of God, according to 1Peter 4:17; the official judgment began in the year 1994. As we have been learning and discussing, there is increasing Biblical evidence pointing to the year 2033 as the conclusion of a prolonged “day of judgment.”

Again, God is able to call a prolonged period of time a (single) day, if He determines to do so, as He did with “the day of temptation” in the wilderness. What is interesting (and it should capture our attention, so we can see how it relates) is that “the day of temptation” in the wilderness was 40 years. These dates, as we have come to know, that include judgment on the churches and then upon the world cover 40 inclusive years.

Additionally, we know that God has been opening the Scriptures to reveal much truth over this entire period of time. He was not revealing these things during the church age of almost two thousand years. He had it sealed up until the time of the end, and then He took the seals off and began to reveal things to the understanding of His people; His Spirit guided people into truth and He opened up the understanding or the spiritual eyes of the believers to know these things, and to understand and comprehend them. We have been learning all kinds of information over the course of the Great Tribulation and into this Day of Judgment concerning the doctrine of hell, and the atonement for sin being when Christ died at the foundation of the world. We have been learning about the faith of Christ; He is the one that saved by His faith, and it was not the faith of man. We have learned about spiritual judgment on the churches, followed by spiritual judgment on the world. We have learned about the timeline of history in the Biblical calendar that has allowed us to lay these things out in a precise manner, so we can see these things, for example, about the 40 inclusive years of temptation. We would not know anything about it apart from the Biblical calendar that God has revealed.

We are also going to look at this whole idea of God opening the Scriptures at the time of the end, starting during the Great Tribulation, and how that might relate to what God did historically with the people of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and they were fed miraculously with bread from heaven. And God made a point of saying that it was bread their fathers knew nothing of. Likewise, we can correctly understand “bread” to have to do with the Word of God and the truth of Scripture. God has been feeding His people over the course of this prolonged judgment period, which is the combined judgment on the churches and on the world, with doctrine that our forefathers within the churches knew nothing of, and the Bible is clear about that. He said they would lack understanding and “see through a glass darkly” throughout their time period. The Lord likens it to them being as “children,” and then at the time of the end He would bring forth the “strong meat.” So, the Bible has this connection between the manna that nourished Israel during the day of temptation and the spiritual information that God had kept in reserve and stored up until the time of the end and which we have been learning over the last many years. There are very interesting parallelisms between these two things. There are also some highly significant tie-ins.

First, when did Egypt begin its wilderness sojourn? It leads back to the deliverance from Egypt. It leads to that time when the Lord delivered all Israel (every single Jew), and they came out of Egypt. When they came out, they entered into this wilderness period when the Lord caused them to wander over the course of 40 years because of their unfaithfulness. But it began with “great deliverance.” Likewise, 1994 was a Jubilee Year and a Jubilee Year identifies with deliverance. Remember, a Jubilee comes every 50 years, and the Lord writes about this in Leviticus 25, where it says in Leviticus 25:8-10:

And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.

Again, the first Jubilee period identified with the birth of Christ in the Jubilee Year of 7 B. C. And it really stretched all through the New Testament church age until 1988 when the rain ended; then there was 2,300 days of famine. Then after 2,300 days, on September 7, 1994, in the second Jubilee period God stretched forth His hand a second time to save the remnant of His people. He proclaimed a Jubilee of great deliverance. That Jubilee happened to work out over the course of about 17 years until the door shut on May 21, 2011, and the Jubilee was complete.

But this is an historical parable, as far as Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and their wandering in the wilderness, so not everything has to align perfectly. But we can align these things, parallel to one another. On one hand, we can say that Israel experienced a great deliverance and then went out of Egypt and the Lord caused them to wander for 40 years before they would enter the Promised Land as their possession. Likewise, 1994 began a Jubilee period, and if we are correct and understanding things right, 2033 would bring the prolonged Judgment Day to a close on the last day when God fulfills all things and He brings His people into the new heaven and new earth, which the Promised Land pictured. It would be the declaration of deliverance to the captives which God began in 1994, and then 40 inclusive years later He would bring His people into the Promised Land, which the land of Canaan only represented. So, we see a similar beginning with deliverance and a similar ending point, as Israel crossed the river Jordan after 40 years and entered into the Promised Land. Yes – I know that history continued, but it was a picture that God was painting. The entry into the Promised Land typifies the entry into the kingdom of heaven. It is just like the crossing of the Red Sea was a picture God painted of entering into heaven itself, as they reached the other side. Of course, the other side was just more wilderness and they continued their wilderness wanderings, but that does not mean that God cannot take a “snapshot” to paint a picture and then move on to illustrate other things. He did that with the crossing of the Red Sea. He did that with the crossing of the Jordan.

You see, now we have the “bookends.” On one side was deliverance from Egypt and on the other side, after 40 years, was the entrance into the land of Canaan, which certainly represents the kingdom of God. And, again, we have the Jubilee Year of 1994 which pronounced great deliverance, followed 40 years later (if our Biblical evidence comes to pass) in the year 2033 with entry into the kingdom of God. And in between are 40 long years, which the Bible calls the “day of temptation.” The “day of temptation” is basically another name for the Day of Judgment: “…lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” The day of temptation or the time of temptation is the day of evil – it is Judgment Day.

Of course, over the span of this period, it is called the “day of temptation” because God is severely trying His people. He is severely testing them, and God did tempt Abraham. Remember how God tempts or tries His people. It is through His Word. It is through the Bible, so the Lord opens up a truth to reveal “manna from heaven” (a wonderful, beautiful mystery of the Gospel that has been sealed up and hidden) that comes down from above to His people. The Word of God is from heaven above, and God has pulled back the curtain to unveil some glorious facts, for example, like the fact we are saved by the faith of Christ. And, surprisingly, some so-called Reformed people fight against that, saying, “Oh, that is not so,” even though the Bible says so in Galatians 2. I will turn there to read it because it is such a wonderful verse. It says in Galatians 2:16:

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

We are justified by the faith of Christ, the faith belonging to Him. It is correctly translated because it is in the genitive case. Of course, we have some so-called Reformed people who will say, “Oh, no, you are not understanding that right.” Then they will try to “spin it” because it does not fit with their doctrine. And we wonder why they would try to “spin it,” because of what the Bible tells us in Ephesians 2:8:

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

It is not your faith. It is the gift of God, and Christ is the gift of God – it is His faith, as it says in Habakkuk. You know, God says that we “live by faith” when He quotes it in the New Testament. But, you see, this is how the Lord wrote the Bible to try and to test us, so He did not quote it fully in the New Testament. It allowed the people in the New Testament churches and the theologians and the Reformers to “run” with their own idea of faith. It says in Habakkuk 2:3-4:

For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.

The pronoun “it” should be “he,” as it refers to Christ. I suppose people could misinterpret this and misapply it to themselves since they see themselves as just. And, yet, the Bible will have none of that because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God: “There is none good, no not one.” And that would include the fact that none are just. None are righteous. “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,” the Bible tells us. It is not our faith in any way – it is His faith, the faith of (belonging to) Christ that justifies. It is His faith by which a man lives and, yet, that is fought and argued against because, you see, they have always claimed to be “Calvinists.” I do not like using the term because we do not need these kinds of identification – we are Bible believers and we trust the Bible. But I am speaking of Reformed men, and this is the claim they make as they take a doctrine and tie it to a man; it helps their natural minds in perceiving it and holding onto it. So, they say they are Calvinists and they believe in election and, yet, all through the history of the church age they would say things like this: “Oh, God saves us. It is the doctrine of election. He predestinated us.” Then in the next breath, they say, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” When someone says, “But I thought it was all of God and that He does this,” then they respond, “Yes – but He commands us to believe, so we have to play our part.” They twist it and they turn it, and they confuse things to no end. And that has been the typical situation throughout the entire church age for almost two thousand years.

You can read the writings of the early church or the medieval church or the churches during the Reformation, or you read the church fathers and theologians right up until today…and by the way, I have read them. I have. I will just mention this because some people might say, “How do you know? Have you actually read them?” Well, I will not say I have read everything, but for several years I worked at Family Radio leading up to May 21, 2011. My job was to compile the things the announcers would read; that is, I had to go on the internet or to whatever books I could find, and I searched for faithful material and typed it all up. Then I would put it in a nice, neat little package for their various programs, like “Music to Live by,” or for “Rise, and Rejoice,” and all the Family Radio programs in which the announcer would read articles. I was the one finding the articles, and I did this for several years. That means I had to find everything I could. I did not care if it was from the 3rd century A. D. or the 15th century A. D., but I was looking for anything and everything that was true and faithful (to the Bible). And, of course, it helped if it was older because it was “public domain” and I could work with it a little bit and even emit certain portions to make sure it was true to the Bible as we understand it at this time of the end.

Of course, that caused me to read an enormous amount of material from the writings of the churches. Obviously, I was concerned about salvation and faith, and I read what they had written and very rarely…I really cannot remember a single writer…would I come across someone that had a proper understanding of the faith of Christ. Truly, we began to understand this in the 90s – I think it was about 1994 – when we began to understand that we are justified by the faith of Christ, it was a “new thing.” It was a new doctrine. This was something that our fathers knew nothing of, and, you see, as it came to light it settled things and cleared up the mass confusion caused by the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Catholics and the Independent churches. All the many churches had different takes on how you could become saved and what the Bible meant by faith. They had all their variations of that, like so many of their doctrines.

And, yet, God clarified it with one beautiful unearthing as He brought it to the surface of understanding in the minds of His people – it was the faith of Christ, not man’s faith. Then, immediately, we identified it as a “work,” and we saw that it was not just a problem for the Armenian churches or free-will churches, but it was the Reformed churches as well that were perverting the pure Gospel of grace and turning it to a “works gospel” by adding just a little bit of man’s work, with their “sleight of hand.” You know, that might make them worse offenders because it is one thing when someone is doing something in full public view, so to speak: “Oh, we believe in a free-will gospel in this church.” That is one thing, but it is even more deceptive and more underhanded for those that claim to be God’s people: “We are the people of God – we believe in election. We are Calvinists. We are Reformers.” They say these things, but they add their little twists and turns. Yes – it was taught in the seminaries, and I also did go to seminary. It was a Reformed Episcopal seminary, and in that seminary (as well as many other Reformed seminaries), they teach: “Believe like a Calvinist. Preach like an Armenian.” Is it any wonder that confusion results? Of course not, but God clarified it when He began to rain down manna from heaven – this “new bread” that nobody had ever heard before. Nobody had ever seen it before.

Lord willing, we will look at “manna” and how it was used, and how it was hated. As we go on in this study, we are going to spend some time looking at the day of temptation because it is so important and timely for us, given that it very well appears to be pointing to – not only our present time – but the years just past in the Great Tribulation and the years that remain. And we can, perhaps, learn a great deal about what God is doing.