Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #40 of Genesis, chapter 24, and we are looking at Genesis 24:48:

And I bowed down my head, and worshipped JEHOVAH, and blessed JEHOVAH God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son.

We have been spending some time looking at the right way of the Bible, the true Gospel.  It is the way that is spoken evil of, as we saw regarding the Apostle Paul after his conversion.  They “spoke evil of that way,” it said in Acts 19:9.  They also called that way “heresy.”  We saw this in Acts 24:14, and I am going to go there, again, and read it.  Paul had been in prison and was on trial for his life.  We will read a bit more of this account and we will read some of the accusations of the Jews as they brought in a certain orator named Tertullus.  It says in Acts 24:2-9:

And when he was called forth, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying, Seeing that by thee we enjoy great quietness, and that very worthy deeds are done unto this nation by thy providence, We accept it always, and in all places, most noble Felix, with all thankfulness. Notwithstanding, that I be not further tedious unto thee, I pray thee that thou wouldest hear us of thy clemency a few words. For we have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes: Who also hath gone about to profane the temple: whom we took, and would have judged according to our law. But the chief captain Lysias came upon us, and with great violence took him away out of our hands, Commanding his accusers to come unto thee: by examining of whom thyself mayest take knowledge of all these things, whereof we accuse him. And the Jews also assented, saying that these things were so.

We must stop for a second and think about the circumstances.  God wrote the Bible, and He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, but the Jews had rebelled against Him and delivered the Lord Jesus Christ (God in the flesh) to be crucified.  So this was the “sedition” that this orator was charging Paul with, and from their perspective it appeared to be heresy, which is what “sedition” means.  It was something terrible that he had done in stirring up Jews all over the world to depart from Judaism, the traditional teaching of Israel, and to go after this new set of doctrines and understandings that had arisen after Jesus Christ came to visit Israel and went to the cross.

What is the truth?  Of course, we have the advantageous position of having the whole Bible and of knowing that Christ is the Son of God who came in fulfillment of the Scriptures.  They had the Old Testament, and they should have known these things, but it was because they were ungodly men that had not the Spirit of God that they rejected the truth and even fought against it, as we read when Jesus said in John 8:45:

And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

He was greatly implying that if He spoke lies, they would have believed Him, so it was not an excuse for them because they had the whole Bible.  God has His elect, and only His elect understand the truth and follow the truth, or the right way of God, no matter what.  When God makes changes in His program as He had done after almost two thousand years of dealing with national Israel, God was ending that relationship and starting the New Testament church age, and He called upon His people to go out and go into the newly forming churches, leaving the synagogue system of worship.  That is God’s right to do.  God is the determiner of the true Gospel, not those that have an outward corporate relationship with Him as caretakers of His Word.  They do not determine the true Gospel.  Israel was not the one to say, “Hey, we have traditions.  We have our beliefs, and we have held to them faithfully, and these men are not holding to them and, therefore, they are heretics.”

Yes – they were heretics of the Jewish traditions and the teachings of the synagogue.  No doubt.  But concerning the teachings of God, they were true men; they were following the right way of God.  They were doing the right thing in turning from those traditions, writings and beliefs of men because the institution of national Israel fought against these truths, and they became the enemies of God.

The Apostle Paul, representing true elect believers of God, began to defend himself in Acts 24:10-14:

Then Paul, after that the governor had beckoned unto him to speak, answered, Forasmuch as I know that thou hast been of many years a judge unto this nation, I do the more cheerfully answer for myself: Because that thou mayest understand, that there are yet but twelve days since I went up to Jerusalem for to worship. And they neither found me in the temple disputing with any man, neither raising up the people, neither in the synagogues, nor in the city: Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me. But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets:

The “law and the prophets” is the Bible.  He believed everything the Bible says.  This was his confession.  Where is the heresy?  Where is the error?  They called it “heresy,” but the fact is that Paul worshipped God in spirit and in truth, and this is the way God’s elect people worship God.  We hold onto the Word, and then we can only brace ourselves because there are certain to come assailants and assaults against the Word.  And if are identified with the Word, we will experience assaults for the Word’s sake or for His name’s sake.

Notice that Paul also said, “This I confess unto thee,” and then he said that the way they called “heresy” is the way that he worshipped God.  He was not ashamed of the Gospel.  And what is the Gospel?  Is it just “Christ on the cross and Him crucified,” and nothing else?  No – the Gospel is the truth of the whole Bible.  The Gospel is what the Bible teaches about a woman’s role and how they are not to be deacons and elders; the Gospel is what the Bible says about marriage and divorce; the Gospel is what the Bible says about the end of the church age, or what it says about Christ being the Lamb slain at the foundation of the world; the Gospel is what the Bible says about Judgment Day coming on the day of May 21, 2011.  The Gospel is every point of doctrine, and this is the way of God, and God’s people are not ashamed of the Gospel.

In this time of the final judgment, it is really a testing ground to see who is ashamed of Christ and His Word.  Who is ashamed of the things declared in His Word?  That is what we read in Matthew 10:32-33:

Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

I had another verse in mind, but I am going to let that go, but this follows up with what the Apostle Paul said, “But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers.”  So, too, God’s people at the end of the world in our time are called upon to make a confession of “the way,” which is the right way. 

You know, when we first entered into the Day of Judgment, there was confusion when we did not know what was going on as May 21, 2011 came in a way we are not expecting.  We had thought there would be a physical manifestation, like a great earthquake.  We even thought we would be gone (from this earth) and it would be the day of the rapture.  But since then, we have learned.  In that period of initial confusion, there was shame heaped upon the people of God by the churches and the world.  The finger was pointed at us.  The accusers in the world were charging God’s elect with error and wrongdoing, and we were accused of being “date setters” that had failed.  “You were all wrong!”  And God’s people kept our mouths closed; we were silent.  We did not know what to do until we went back to study the Bible to see what was going on and what had happened.  And since then, we have learned a great deal.  We know exactly why there was no physical earthquake – it was a spiritual judgment.  There was no rapture because it was never God’s plan to rapture the elect out of the world to avoid the judgment.  The Bible says there is one event to all, the righteous and the wicked.  God would bring both before his judgment throne.  It is actually stated very clearly in the Bible, so now we have explanations.

And yet these people are still trying: “You were wrong, you dastardly date setters!  You were wrong!”  But this was the way of God and we were not wrong because May 21, 2011 was Judgment Day and God shut the door and ended His salvation program.  Of course, they seize upon this in almost a political manner as these enemies of the true Gospel and the right way of God seek to gain allies, saying, “These men say there is no salvation for anyone.  Your children cannot be saved.”  They try to use that grievous fact to convince others to be against what the true and right way of the Bible declares, but the truth is that God is no longer saving because He has saved “to the uttermost.”  He has accomplished great salvation.  He has saved everyone who was named to be saved, and He has carried out the salvation of the souls, the first resurrection.  He has completed it.  It is a wonderful thing.  It is a glorious thing.  It is something for which God should be praised because He has accomplished the salvation He promised to do, and He has saved everyone whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  So what more salvation could there be?   Of course there is no more salvation than the salvation of all those predestinated to receive it.   Of course there is no more salvation than the salvation of all those whose sins were laid upon the Lord Jesus at the foundation of the world and paid for at that point.  There cannot possibly be any more salvation than that, even if the world continued for a hundred years more!   You do not even need the language of a shut door because it does not matter, as God has saved every last one of the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  It is not something that should be hidden.  It is not something to be ashamed of, but it is something to glorify God for because that was the whole purpose of His salvation program all along, and He has finished it.  To God be the glory!

So the enemies of the true and right way of God as taught in the Bible have been revealing their true nature as they go back from that true and right way, and they come against the true and right way, calling it heresy and calling it sedition.  It is the most horrible thing imaginable to be someone who believes in a “date.”  This is the accusation they charge God’s people with, but, again, they do not look at their own house and the tremendous number of false teachings that abound in their own church and denomination that are “written in stone.”  They do not look at their high places and their idolatry, but they think that God’s elect and what they believe are their enemies.

Will confess the things that God has graciously and kindly unveiled to reveal to us at the time of the end, and we thank the Lord for them.   And, yes, those that hold the traditions and teachings of the corrupt, apostate and desolate corporate church will consider the “right way” heretical, no doubt.  And it is from their advantage point of being a church without a head or guide, the Holy Spirit, and without any spiritual understanding within it.  Of course they would view the right way of God in that manner, like their forefathers before them, the dead and corrupt nation of Israel at the time God rent the veil of the temple and removed Himself from them.  They are following in the traditional footsteps of their forefathers, in that sense.

But the truth is that just as Paul stood among them and made this confession: “I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers,”  we, too, worship the God of our fathers that are the true, elect children of God.  You know, our fathers were not well-spoken of, and the men and women that followed the way of God all down through history have been charged with being heretics, and they have experienced every type of assault you can think of, as God declared in Hebrews 11:32-40:

And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

You see, they followed the way of God, a grievous way, a narrow way, and a way of tribulation and affliction, with trouble on every side.  It was a way that the professed Jews and professed Christians came against constantly, driving them out of the synagogues and out of the churches and congregations.  It was just a few hundred years ago that the corporate church burned men and women at the stake for wanting to get the Bible into the hands of the people.  The enemies of the way of God, the right way, have often been found under the guise of calling themselves the people of God – the guise of calling themselves Christians or the guise of calling themselves Israelites.  They have been some of the worst persecutors that have afflicted God’s people in the cruelest way down through the history of the world.  And nothing has changed today.  Nothing has changed.  God’s people continue to travel the narrow way, the way of suffering tribulation and affliction.  We must go through much tribulation to enter into that glorious kingdom that awaits us at the finish line of this way.  So all along, this was to be expected.  This is really what we can expect when we look at what the history of the Bible says about the people of God.

We are not “out of the way” in any sense.  We are on the correct path that has been illuminated by the Word of God, the Bible. 

We did not get to some of the verses I wanted to get to and, Lord willing, next time we will look at some of the prophets of old and how they declared this right way, the truth of the Bible, and the response to it by Israel, which typified the churches.  And we will see that nothing has changed as far as the ungodly response to the truth, and how they are always hostile to it.