Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #30 of Genesis, chapter 22, and we are going to be reading Genesis 22:17-19:
That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.
We spent some time looking at the “stars” and we saw how stars can point to God’s elect people, and we looked at some places where God referred to the stars withdrawing their shining and falling. We saw how significant that language is when you have the proper spiritual understanding. When you have the spiritual definition of stars, then that kind of language makes sense and we can see how it fits into God’s Judgment Day program.
After God said that He would multiply Abraham’s seed as the stars of the heaven, it goes on to say, in Genesis 22:17:
…and as the sand which is upon the sea shore…
This is also a fairly common reference in the Bible, but this reference to the sand of the sea shore can refer either to God’s elect or to those that identify with God through association, like professed Christians that are also related to sand of the sea shore in the Bible. Actually, God does this more often with Israel, but Israel is a figure of the corporate church, so it does point to professed Christians that populate the churches and congregations. For instance, it says in Isaiah 10:22:
For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness
God refers to Israel as “the sand of the sea,” which reminds us of the promise to Abraham, but then He speaks of how “a remnant of them shall return.” It is the Old Testament, and in the Old Testament God veiled language even more so than the New Testament, even though the whole Bible has veiled language and, yet, it is repeated in the New Testament in a more understandable way, in Romans 9:27:
Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:
This is what the statement, “a remnant of them shall return,” pointed to and, here, God clears that up and we can know what it means. A remnant shall be saved. So Israel could have had a population of a couple million and, yet, God could make a statement that 7,000 had not bowed the knee to Baal, indicating that 7,000 had become saved. We also read about that in Romans. It says in Romans 11:1-5:
I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
That is how we understand the 7,000, as a remnant out of the whole of Israel. And the whole of Israel could be likened to the sand of the sea. The nation of Israel had great numbers, as a couple million people are a great number, but a remnant shall be saved, and that remnant that is saved was saved according to the election of grace. It was not of works and as it says in John 1, it is not of the flesh or the will of man or of blood, but of God. It was God’s grace granted to dirty rotten sinners as He saved them. That was God’s salvation program, and it was a remnant out of the whole of Israel of the Old Testament and a remnant out of the whole of what Israel pointed to which were the New Testament churches and congregations and those that called themselves Christians and filled the pews. Over the course of the church age, it was the same principal. This is why we read in a few places when Christ would speak a parable: “ are called, but few are chosen.” People filled up the churches in the nations, as churches were established in nation after nation. Over the course of time, many generations went into the churches, but there was always only a remnant chosen according to the election of grace. These were predestinated before the foundation of the world, and then Christ died for them at a point of the foundation of the world, thereby obligating God to save those certain individuals. And that is exactly what He did. For Israel of the Old Testament, there would have been very few, because the whole of Israel would only have been a handful of Israel at Israel’s “high water mark,” and God saved only a few thousand. That is why we read of relatively few people being saved out of all Israel.
In the New Testament era, the numbers increased. The churches began to spread into the nations and people began to enter into the churches, so there were scores of millions. As it started to approach the 20th Century, population began to increase across the face of the earth. Maybe there were a few hundred million in the churches, but it continued to grow and grow. Simultaneous to our approaching the time of the end of the world when it got to the point when God would come to visit the congregations after having given them time to repent, it was the year 1988 and God came and removed His Spirit from their midst. Then there was that 2,300 evening mornings of grievous famine, and then came 1994 when God would begin to pour out His Latter Rain to complete His salvation program outside of the churches and congregations. Thereby He was letting it be known that the judgment was officially on the churches, and what was the population of the churches at that time? It was two billion – not two million, but almost two billion. Christ who possessed the key to the bottomless pit loosed Satan (in 1988) and Satan entered into the corporate church and took his seat as the man of sin. We read in Revelation 20 of the Lord Jesus doing this, in Revelation 20:1-3:
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
The binding of Satan took place at the cross in 33 A. D. for a figurative thousand years, which represented the entire church age, which ended in 1988, but was official in 1994. At the close of the church age, Revelation 7 tells us what happened. It says in Revelation 20:7:
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Christ took the key He possessed to the bottomless pit, and He opened it and let Satan go free. This is the reason we have this dark and incredibly filthy world that has been given over to sin and all manners of wickedness, like the things we read about in Romans 1. The Holy Spirit had been keeping these sins somewhat “under wraps,” especially the sin of homosexuality, for most of earth’s history, except for outbreaks here and there. But now it has just exploded since 1988 to the present. It has exploded because Satan was loosed, and he was given the rule over the nations and over the churches, as had never been seen before, and the world entered into a dark, dark period. It is now similar to the time prior to the cross when Satan had free reign to go about and he was not bound in the bottomless pit (in a figurative way, as the Bible refers to it). We have seen in the Old Testament that when Satan is loosed, that is when the nations of the world were involved in all sorts of idolatrous worship; they would even offer their sons and daughters as sacrifices and burnt offerings. There is just no bottom to how low man can go by the urging and prompting of Satan, their spiritual father.
If we go back 50 or 60 years when the world began to make progress in technology and advancements in transportation and communication, they actually thought they were making progress in peace and that mankind was going to live in harmony and everything would be wonderful. They thought that for a time. Nobody thinks that any longer, because we have seen what happens when the constraints upon man’s evil heart of stone are lifted more and more. We see incredible wickedness that has spread across the face of the earth. Certainly, sin has multiplied, as we read in Matthew 24, fulfilling that verse. And the apostacy in the churches lets us know that we are at the time of the end. There is absolutely no question about it. There is no doubt as we see these Biblical indicators or sign posts, especially what is going on with the sin of homosexuality that God writes about in Romans 1. That is another huge indicator, and when we see the condition of the churches and the condition of the world, then God lays across all this the Biblical calendar that aligns perfectly with the end of the church age with judgment beginning at the house of God. And now we see that the world has entered into the Day of Judgment, and it is all further proof and confirmation that we are there (at the very end of the world). I remember that book that Family Radio came out with titled, “We Are Almost There.” Well, we are there. We are living on the earth in its end stage. It is Judgment Day and we are well into that time. God has already completed judgment on the churches and now we are well into the time of judgment on the world by several years. The language of the Bible declares these things, and the Biblical calendar of history proves these things.
But it was back at the end of the church age that Christ loosed Satan, and after he was loosed, it says of Satan in Revelation 20:8:
And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
You see, Satan had taken over the corporate churches. Remember, God had used that figure of the “sand of the sea” to refer to Israel, which in turn pointed to the churches and congregations and professed Christians. As soon as Satan took over the church and began to rule as the man of sin, it was as though all those in the congregations that refused God’s command to come out of the midst were militarized and became Satan’s army, and he came against the churches themselves and the truth of the Word of God and the true doctrines of the Bible.
So we see this reference to the “sand of the sea,” and when we seen in Genesis 22 that God speaks to Abraham and says, “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore,” we can understand this on two levels. It is a dual picture. In every generation, there is a remnant (saved), like the 7,000 that did not bow the knee to Baal. Then when we got to the time of the end, the world’s population was so enormous. I think there were about seven billion people leading up to May 21, 2011, and God saved, perhaps, 150 million or 175 million. We do not know the precise number, but He saved a great multitude and, yet, it is still a remnant out of the whole of the people of the world.
But when you put all these remnants together over the course of history, they become as the stars of the heaven or the sand of the sea shore for multitude, so the sum total of all God’s elect become a great multitude and an enormous number, fulfilling the promise of the stars of the heaven and the sand of the sea.
But because the churches identified with God’s people (because that is where the elect of God could be found), we see a similar identification with the reference to “third part.” In some places, the Lord uses the term “third part” and only the elect could be in view, like Zechariah 13. But in other places, such as Revelation 8, it is judgment on the “third part” and, therefore, it could only be the corporate church that is in view because of their assumed identification with the churches where the elect or “third part” were found. And, finally, they become identified with the “third part” as God brings judgment. It is the same with the reference to the sand of the sea shore.
The people of God ultimately become the fulfillment of that promise to Abraham and his seed (Christ) and, yet, there is a sort of a “rubbing off” on the churches and on Israel of the Old Testament due to their profession, and they can also be identified with the sand of the sea.
I think we will wait until our next study before we get into the next statement where it says in Genesis 22:17: “and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies,” because that is kind of involved and I do not want to rush through it. So we will end our Bible study here and, Lord willing, when we get together next time, we will begin at the end of verse 17 and continue looking at Genesis 22, verse by verse. It is really a wonderful way to study the Bible, as we take our time, and by God’s grace, we are able to focus and concentrate on things we probably would not have seen before.