Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #54 of Genesis, chapter 24, and we are reading, once again, Genesis 24:60-61:

And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them. And Rebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels, and followed the man: and the servant took Rebekah, and went his way.

I will stop reading there.  We were talking about Matthew 16:18.  We went there due to the language of the seed possessing the gate of them that hate them.  I will read Matthew 16:18:

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Remember that in the Bible “hell” identifies with “death” or the “grave.”  So the gates of death will not prevail against the church that Christ will build upon the rock, referring to Himself.  Last time, we looked at 2Peter 2, and we saw that when God saves people, He likens them to living stones by which He builds His spiritual house.  And the reference to house relates to the church, as it said in 1Timothy 3:15 said: “…the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” The “pillar and ground of the truth” refers back to the living God.  To add those that God has saved to the spiritual house means it is a “spiritual church,” and that must be taken into consideration whenever we see the word “church” in the Bible.  It could be the outward physical corporate church, or it could be the eternal invisible church, because the spiritual house is an invisible house or an invisible church. 

During the church age, the churches had both “wheat and tares,” the saved and the unsaved, within it in the churches and congregations of the world.  On the other hand, the spiritual church is comprised only of the elect, those that are truly born again and saved.  God did not add unsaved people as “living stones” because they were not alive spiritually, so they were not be added to that spiritual house.  That would not be possible.

God started the corporate church, and it grew and multiplied in the nations and, yet, at the same time that the outward corporate church was expanding in the world, God was building a spiritual church made up of the few elect, the chosen ones that had come into the congregations; they were added to that spiritual house of all those that were saved.  At the time of the end, God saved the great multitude (outside of the churches), completing His spiritual house.  Then all those whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life to be saved were saved, and then God shut the door of heaven on the world, leaving that great multitude that were saved during the second part of the Great Tribulation in the location out in the world, which had been turned into “hell.”  Revelation 9 illustrates as the smoke coming up out of the pit and darkening the sun; the condition that had been in the pit of hell rose up to the earth, and the earth became a place of darkness and thick smoke because God shut the door or,    we could say, the gate of hell was “rolled” upon the world that became like a grave.  I use that language of the gate of hell being “rolled” very intentionally because when Christ was placed in the tomb, we read that they rolled a great stone to the door, in Matthew 27:59-60:

And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.

The tomb had an entrance so they could put the body inside, and when the body was placed there, they rolled a great stone upon it.  They later sealed the stone and set a watch.  The stone was enclosing the tomb, and a tomb is a grave.  And what is the grave?  It is “hell.”  Just look up the word “sheh-ole” in the Old Testament.  It is translated as “hell” about 30 times, and it is also translated as “grave” about 30 times.  It is equally translated as either the “grave” or “hell,” so God was giving a big clue that the idea of “hell” identifies with the grave or with death. 

God shut the door of heaven, thus locking the world and its inhabitants in hell.  We know that all the elect are already seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and we have our citizenship there, but we are still in our physical bodies and still on the earth in a place that God has turned into “hell.”  That is not my language.  Read Psalm 9:17: “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”  That is what the Bible says.  God has turned the nations (the unsaved people of the earth) into a graveyard or the pit of hell, and that is why everyone’s spiritual condition is fixed.  The only time that could happen (for someone that was righteous to be “righteous still” or someone that was filthy to be “filthy” still) during past history was at the point of their physical death.  Whatever condition they died in becomes “fixed.”  It is established.  It cannot be changed after death.

The theologians and God’s people throughout the church age (with the exception of certain churches that had very little understanding of truth) were in agreement that when someone died, it sealed their eternal fate.  And we could be thankful that if someone died saved, then they would remain righteous after death; they were made righteous by the righteousness of Christ when they lived and would be “righteous still” after their death.  Also, people sorrowed that while their loved one was alive, they never gave evidence of salvation.  They were in their sins and “filthy.”   But there is no hope that once they died, they could be saved after death because death sealed their spiritual condition.

And that is exactly what happened when the door was shut on May 21, 2011.  It sealed the condition of all people because it is as if we had “died” because people entered into the condition of the grave or hell.  And here we are on the earth which has been turned into hell.  What is going to happen to the people of God and that great multitude that God had saved?  The gates of hell cannot prevail over the church that Christ has built upon Himself, the Rock.  Here is an excellent opportunity for God to show forth His power and might, and to glorify Himself and His Word and to glorify the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is a severe testing program where God is putting his church to the test.  Will the shut door of hell prevail against His church?  And the answer is, “Absolutely not.”

Remember what we read in Matthew 7 concerning a wise man that built a house and a foolish man that built a house.  I will read Matthew 7:24:

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

According to 1Timothy 3:15, the “house” is the church of Matthew 16:18: “Upon this rock I will build my church.”  The church and house are synonyms.  The wise man is obviously the Lord Jesus Christ, and He built His house upon a rock.  He is that Rock.  He is the foundation upon which all is built: “The builder and maker is God.” 

Then it says in Matthew 7:25-27:

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

There are a couple of things in view with the foolish man building his house.  First, it would identify with the corporate or external church, the earthly “house” of this tabernacle that identifies with the local churches on the street corners.  It also identifies with the kingdom of Satan and the fall of it that we are seeing at this time. 

But notice that the house was (past tense) upon the rock.  The storm identifies with the wrath of God that came in the Day of Judgment and which we are presently experiencing, and in order for the house to be properly tested by the storm, it must first be built.  You would not expect a house that was only half built to go through such a severe testing program.  God wants everyone to know that this house was built, solidly and firmly, upon the rock and now God is subjecting it to the severe storm of His wrath in the Day of Judgment, and it endures, as it says in Matthew 24:13: “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”  The spiritual house or spiritual church that is invisible and comprised of God’s elect, is enduring throughout the Day of Judgment as we stand before the judgment seat of Christ.  And “to stand” means to abide or endure to the end, and it is a testimony  not to the house itself or to the spiritual stones but to the Rock which it is built upon, Christ Jesus.  Therefore, God gets all the glory, and that is why Isaiah 24, a chapter that describes the final judgment of the world, says in Isaiah 24:15:

Wherefore glorify ye JEHOVAH in the fires, even the name of JEHOVAH God of Israel in the isles of the sea.

The isles of the seas are the continents.  This verse is a Hebrew parallelism in which the first part of the verse identifies with the second part of the verse.  Glorify JEHOVAH in the fires, and where are the fires?  They are in the isles of the sea or the continents.  The earth is on “fire” because the earth has been turned into “hell.”  The seal of the stone has been rolled upon the entrance, and none may leave, just like Daniel was sealed in the pit of lions after the seventy years, which identifies with our time after the Tribulation.  We have been sealed in a “testing arena” where we have been left on the earth.  Yes – we are built upon that foundation, but the fire will declare whether we are “gold, silver, precious stones” or “wood, hay, stubble.”  In other words, will the fire declare that we are part of that eternal, invisible house that will endure to the end, or are we part of another structure built by a foolish man and not the Lord Jesus Christ?  Do we hold to beliefs and understandings that are incorrect and are we part of the corporate church structure that will burn up?   The “day” will reveal it, and the fire that has been lit will reveal it, but God’s people will glorify JEHOVAH in the fires.  The gates of hell will not prevail against the glorious house or temple the Lord Jesus Christ has built without hands, and that fact will bring great glory to God.

So this is in view when Jesus said He would build His church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it.  And that is not true in any way of the corporate church.  It is just not true.  It is a complete misunderstanding and misapplication of that verse when it is applied in any way to any denominations or churches.  It has to do with one denomination (if you want to use that term), and that is the denomination of God’s elect.  Only the elect children of God are the “church” that is in view, and none other.  We are the church that is also in view in Ephesians 5:23-25:

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

Did Christ love everyone that happened to be a member of the churches?  No.  I do not think that even the people that believe the “church” in Matthew 16:18 is referring to the Catholic Church (or whatever denomination) would believe that.  But even if they did, they would be wrong.  The Bible indicates that Christ loved His church from the foundation of the world.  That is when the sins of the eternal church (all whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life) were laid upon Him, and He gave Himself for them in payment for their sins.  He died the death that satisfied the Law’s demand, thus cleansing and washing them with the “baptism” of the fire of the wrath of God.  Therefore, the work was done.  It was finished at the foundation of the world, but there still needed to be the application of that atonement during the history of the world in every generation as God would apply the blood of the Lord Jesus to those predestinated to receive it.  He was building His church down through the centuries over the thousands of years of earth’s history until that great  and glorious day came on May 21, 2011 when the church was finally built.  The construction was complete, and all to be saved were saved.  All the lost sheep had been found – everyone who had been named was recovered and added to the spiritual house, and it was made ready.  And immediately, Judgment Day began to show if the gates of hell would prevail and if the storm destroy the house.  And we have been enduring this judgment for several years now, and we will endure it for some time more until the last day of this prolonged judgment period.  Then on that last day, there will be the wonderful exclamation and declaration by God that His church has endured the test and passed the test “with flying covers,” and He will lift us up and exult us into the heavens to forever be with Him.  He will create the new heaven and new earth, and for evermore, there will be joy with the Lord.

We will come back and look at a couple of more things dealing with this before we go back to our verse in Genesis 24, Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study.