Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #9 of Genesis, chapter 26, and we are continuing to read Genesis 26:8-11:

And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife. And Abimelech called Isaac, and said, Behold, of a surety she is thy wife: and how saidst thou, She is my sister? And Isaac said unto him, Because I said, Lest I die for her. And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done unto us? one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us. And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.

I will stop reading there.  Last time, we were discussing the Scripture that proclaimed that God would laugh at the wicked in the Day of Judgment, and we are not surprised at that because God has told us that Judgment Day would be a time of “laughing” in Ecclesiastes 3:1:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

Then in the following several Scriptures, there are numerous contrasts given.  And we can understand by these contrasts that God is illustrating the “day of salvation” over against the Day of Judgment, in verse, after verse, after verse.  For example it says in Ecclesiastes 3:2:

A time to be born, and a time to die…

We can liken the time of birth to being born again, which occurred in God’s timetable of things within the boundaries of the day of salvation; and the time to die is the time when the wicked come under the wrath of God in the Day of Judgment. 

Or, the next statement says, “a time to plant,” which has to do with sowing the seed of the Gospel, and we know that the Gospel seed was sown when the Word of God was sown upon the hearts of men.  And, here and there, God would save a sinner, so “a time to plant” would identify with salvation, and “and a time to pluck up that which is planted” identifies with harvest, and harvest (identifies) with judgment.  So in both of those statements, we can see the two main programs of God: 1) His magnificent salvation program; and 2) His terrible judgment program.

Or, we see in verse 3: “A time to kill, and a time to heal.”  

You  know, we are just following the sample principle we would follow anywhere in the Bible.  If we come across a verse that says it is “a time to kill,” when would that be?  It would be when God destroys the sinner, and they perish forever.  And, again, they cease to be.  When would that happen?  Judgment Day.  Also, “a time to heal” would indicate what?  The Lord Jesus performed many miracles of healing, and every time He did heal a leper or a woman with a flow of blood or any other sickness, it was an illustration of salvation.  Again, “a time to kill” is Judgment Day, contrasted with “a time to heal,” the day of salvation.

Then it says in verse 3: “…a time to break down, and a time to build up;”  We can see through many verses in the Bible when God would build a house, as He had Solomon build the temple, and He was building His church, the spiritual house (comprised of the elect).  To “build up” is related to the language of 1Corinthians 3, and let us turn there.  This is maybe a little more difficult to see than the others, so that is why I want to look at it in this verse, in 1Corinthians 3:9:

For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.

How do we become God’s “building”?  When He sent forth His Word, found us, saved us, and added us as “living stones” to that building project, which He completed by the date of May 21, 2011.  So there was “a time to break down,” and “a time to build up.”  And when we get to Matthew 24, Jesus said, “There shall not be left here one stone upon another,” describing the judgment upon the churches and congregations.  And, of course, the picture of Babylon’s fall is also typified by the house in Matthew 7.  There were two houses.  There was the wise man’s house built upon the Rock, and the foolish man’s house built upon the earth.  And the storm came, and the storm is Judgment Day, and it beat against both houses, because both the wise and the wicked (the elect and the non-elect) are going through the judgment.  The elect were left and remaining on the earth to go through Judgment Day – unless they die first – and endure to the end.  And that is the time when God is breaking down the house of the  wicked – the house of Satan’s kingdom of this world – and it falls and is destroyed in Judgment Day.  So this statement that there is “a time to break down, and a time to build up,”  also represents judgment and salvation.  God is going back and forth with each statement, contrasting one with the other.

Then it says in Ecclesiastes 3:4: “A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”  And, likewise, each of these statements identifies with either salvation and the day of salvation or judgment and the Day of Judgment.  One might think that “weeping” might identify with Judgment Day, and that “mourning” would identify with Judgment Day, and the “laughing” and “dancing” would identify with the day of salvation.  But that is not how God describes it in His Word, the Bible.  For example, if we go to Psalm 126, it says in Psalm 126:4-6:

Turn again our captivity, O JEHOVAH, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

The Lord ties sowing with tears and weeping.  I just mentioned that sowing has to do with the sending forth of the Word of God.  The Word is the seed falling upon the hearts of men, and God saved His elect among men, and that is “a time of weeping.”  It is a sowing in tears, and then later there is reaping with joy.   So when Ecclesiastes 3:4 says there is “a time to weep,” it identifies with the day of salvation, and “a time to laugh” identifies with Judgment Day.  “A time to mourn” is the day of salvation, and “a time to dance” is Judgment Day.  And we did see this in Proverbs 1, and I will go back there again, where the Lord is speaking in Proverbs 1:26-30:

I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of JEHOVAH: They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.

This passage is important.  Not only does this passage tell us that God will laugh at their calamity and mock when their fear cometh and when destruction and anguish comes, which is Judgment Day, but it also goes on to define in what manner God will laugh and mock in that day: “Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of JEHOVAH: They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.”  It is the Word of God that is His counsel and reproof.  So, basically, God is saying that He will do what they did to His Word when He sent it forth in the day of salvation – they laughed, and they mocked.  What does it mean to say that one laughs and mocks when they hear the Word of God?  It is probably easier for us to look at it from our perspective because we have been sinners under the wrath of God, and maybe we have even mocked the Word of God at some point in our lives, and the whole idea of Christ and salvation.  So we can understand from that perspective, and what were we doing at the time?  Maybe it was the church age, and someone invited us to church, and we “blew it off.”  Or, maybe someone handed us a tract, told us about the faithful ministry of Family Radio at that time.  And we have certainly seen others do these same things when a true message of the Bible came to their ears, and they dismissed.  They despised it.  They may have literally laughed at it, or ripped up the tract.  Whatever they did, they were indicating that they had no need of the Gospel.  Their hearts were not broken.  They were not mourning and weeping.  They were not humbled before God in any way and, therefore, even if they did not literally laugh, it was as though they were laughing and mocking.  And they may have well been dancing.  It was really showing that they had no fear of God, and no fear of His wrath or the judgment the Bible warns about, especially as God opened up information about the coming Day of Judgment on May 21, 2011.

And when that day did come, at that point God turned around and said, “I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.”  And how will God laugh and mock now?  When they call upon Him, He will not answer.  You see, He called to mankind, the Gospel call.  Remember that parable about going out into the highways and byways, and calling them to His feast, the marriage supper of the Lamb.  And they refused.  God had called them as His Word went forth, and they did not answer.  So it is the time of turn-around: “I will spoil them that spoiled thee.”  It is the judgment of Babylon.  It is giving them the cup that they themselves had been meting out.  I think this is how we can define this idea of God laughing.

And, also, His people are laughing.  It is not just God.  If we turn to Luke 6, the Bible gives us an incredible insight into the world, the people of God, and how things were and how things are; that is, it is insight into the day of salvation, and insight into the Day of Judgment.  It says in Luke 6:20-25:

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.

You see, the contrast is between God’s elect children and the people of the world – the difference between Jacob and Esau – in the time when God was sending forth the Gospel in a time of affliction.  It was a time when there was a great battle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan as Christ went forth conquering and to conquer, ransacking the house of Satan and setting the captives free.  And Satan was battling back, assaulting those that carried the Word of God.  It was a time of tremendous reproach and weeping: “Blessed are ye that weep now,” God said to His people within the boundary and timeline of the day of salvation that concluded on May 21, 2011: “Blessed are ye that carry the Gospel, and ye that sow in tears.  Blessed are ye that weep now during that time period, “for now is the day of salvation,” as it said in 2Corinthians.  Again, it was within the time constraints and limitation God placed upon it.  And, yet, God promised: “. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.”  There would come a time when we would laugh, but on the flip side, in verse 25, it said, “Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.”  And, again, when was the sinner and wicked one laughing?  He was laughing within the day of salvation at God, oftentimes, and at the idea of needing a Saviour and needing to be saved of his sins – all that Jesus stuff: “You, holy rollers!”  How many  insults and abuses have the men of the world hurled forth at God and at the Word of God.  “Here they come with their Gospel!”  And there was mockery at those in the churches and congregations.  They were laughing because they were at ease.  There was no troubling them.

And, yet, that day is over with, because God is no longer sending them the Gospel to laugh at, as God is no longer evangelizing the earth and commanding His people to be His ambassadors to beseech them.  You know, that word “beseech” is a very strong word, as we read in 2Corinthians 5:18-21:

And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

And this leads into the next chapter, in 2Corinthians 6:1-2:

We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)

“We beseech you,” it was said in 2Corinthians 5:20: “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.”  And the word “pray” is the word “ask.”  We ask you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.  There was a sorrowful and mournful plea, soaked in tears, like the woman who washed Christ’s feet with the hairs of her head.  That is what that pictured.  It pictured the feet of God’s people: “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!”  Yes, it was extremely sorrowful, because God did not hide the fact that the majority of people would reject His Word.  As a matter of fact, they could  not choose Him because it all had to be by the grace of God and, yet, they did not humble themselves.  They did not fall down and submit themselves to God, and cry up to heaven and beat upon their breast, saying, “God, be merciful unto me, a sinner.”  Instead, in their arrogant and proud hearts, they laughed, as it were, at God.  They mocked His Word.  They mocked His messengers.  We could go to verses in the Old Testament like this.  I think it was Hezekiah that sent messengers through the land, and they were mocked by the people of the land.  And that is a good picture of how the world has treated the servants of God. 

Well, they laughed then, but now God is no longer sending the messengers.  Now He is no longer sending us forth with the Gospel, so they have no one to laugh and mock at any longer, and now the situation is very much like the parable of Lazarus and the rich man.  Let us turn over there, to Luke 16.  We know there was a rich man that ate very well, and Lazarus, the beggar, desired to be fed with the crumbs that fell from his table.  And this is really a picture of Judgment Day because both died.  Lazarus died, and the rich man died.  And remember that all of us – whether righteous or wicked – are presently living on the earth in the Day of Judgment wherein the door of heaven has been shut.  The image in Revelation 9 is that the “pit of hell” has been opened, and the smoke of the pit has risen up and darkened the sun, turning the condition of earth into “hell,” and “hell” is the grave.  We are all living on the earth in the grave or condition of hell while we go through this entire judgment period and, yet, some of us are like the beggar Lazarus who died, and we read in Luke 16:22-24:

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

You see, Lazarus was not being sent.  That is what God has done. That is why the printing press stopped printing the tracts, “Does God Love You?”  That is why Mr. Camping correctly knew right after May 21, 2011 that there would be no more tract trips and the sending forth of God’s messengers for the purpose of evangelizing; that is, not for the purpose of encouraging souls to go to God to seek salvation, because salvation had come to an end. 

We are all represented by the idea of a beggar, in the Bible, and the beggar was not sent.  The beggar is residing in Abraham’s bosom.  That is, he is in the safe and secure position of the kingdom of God, just as every one of the elect left alive upon the earth is safe in the kingdom of God.  Our salvation has been guaranteed, and God will lift us up and bring us into heaven.

But notice the answer when the rich man requested that Lazarus be sent with the Gospel.  It says in Luke 16:25:

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things…

That is, He is saying, “Remember that you laughed and mocked.  You played.  You danced.”  It was all “out of season,” because it was the day of salvation, a time of weeping, mourning and lamenting, and you should have gone to the house of mourning.  Instead, you went to the house of feasting.”  So God is pointing this out, as He says, “Son,” and all mankind are God’s children.  If you read the genealogies of Luke 3, it says that Adam was the son of God.  And, of course, Adam fell into sin, and this made all of these sons of God wicked, but God is the Father of all human beings, the righteous and the wicked.  Again, God said in Luke 16:25:

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things…

Oh, poor Lazarus.  He had it tough.  He had it bad.  You see, he is identified with mourning, sowing in tears and weeping.  He was despised.  He was looked down upon and humiliated.  A beggar!  He was nothing – he was the lowest of the low in the eyes of the world.  He had the evil things, and the rich man had the good things.  We see the contrast here, just as we saw in Ecclesiastes 3. 

Likewise, now Lazarus is comforted, and the rich man is tormented.  Lazarus is laughing and dancing.  It goes on to say in Luke 16:25:

… but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

Lazarus is laughing and dancing: “Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.”  Not so, the rich man: “Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.”  That is the point being made here. 

Then it says in Luke 16:26:

And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Remember what God said in Proverbs 1: “I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh.”  And He defined that and said that they will seek Him, but they will not find Him.  He will not answer their call.  And that is exactly what is being described here.