Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #23 of Genesis, chapter 26, and we are reading Genesis 26:27-33:

And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you? And they said, We saw certainly that JEHOVAH was with thee: and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee; That thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace: thou art now the blessed of JEHOVAH. And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink. And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac's servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water. And he called it Shebah: therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day.

As we were discussing in our last study, and I have to quickly go over it again, in case anyone is newly joining us for this study, and they would not understand what I am going to say next without understanding the spiritual context.  The spiritual context is that Isaac is a type of Christ, and Abimelech is a type of Satan.  As we discussed previously, Isaac and his wife Rebekah are a picture of Christ and His spiritual bride, all those that are saved, the elect.

Isaac said of his wife that she was his sister, as his father Abraham before him had said of his wife.  And that is spiritually true of Christ’s relationship with His bride.  We are His bride, and we are also His brethren, because we do the will of God.

And, yet, the situation with Abraham and Sarah and their encounter with a king, Abimelech, of the Philistines, was that Sarah was taken, and God came to Abimelech at night and said, “Thou art but a dead man, for she is man’s wife.”  Then, out of fear, Abimelech released her.  So God was instrumental in freeing the captive, Sarah, who is a picture of the bride of Christ, the elect.  Therefore, it is a picture of salvation, because Abimelech was a type of Satan who keeps the unsaved in a “house of bondage,” as it were.  Again, we spent some time talking about how that represented the Latter Rain and the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

However, in the case of Isaac and Rebekah, Rebekah was not taken by this King Abimelech, into his house or into his harem.  He did spy them sporting with one another, and he realized that she was his wife.  Again, the word “sporting” has to do with playing, so please review past studies if you have not been following along.  But  they sported or played, and God identifies laughing and playing with the Day of Judgment.  There are tears and mourning in the day of salvation, but it says in Luke 6, “ye shall laugh,” and that future time of laughing occurs at the time of the final judgment of the world.

So we saw that Rebekah was not taken and, therefore, not delivered as Sarah had been delivered before her, because in Judgment Day, there are no more elect that are in captivity to sin and to Satan.  They had all been delivered by the date of May 21, 2011, or by the time that judgment started on the world.  All to be saved had been saved, and that is why she was not taken, and there was no need to deliver Rebekah.

We have moved along from that point until our current passage, and now a strange thing is happening.  Abimelech had sent Isaac away, and now he is coming to Isaac again, and Isaac said, “Why have you come to see me, seeing that you hate me?”  And that was true, as hatred and separation from someone does spiritually relate to hatred in the Bible, and we would expect Satan to hate Christ and His bride.  There is no surprise there.

But the surprising thing is that now Abimelech is coming to him and Isaac and it says in Genesis 26:27:

And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you?

Then the answer is, in Genesis 26:28-29:

And they said, We saw certainly that JEHOVAH was with thee: and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee; That thou wilt do us no hurt…

Then, it says in Genesis 26:30-31:

And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink. And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.

And that is the difficult thing for us to understand on a spiritual level.  Historically, it is no problem, and that is why reading and understanding the Bible the way the churches do – with their plain, historical, grammatical method of interpretation – is so simplistic.  It is very easy to do, and you do not have to pose any hard questions if you study the Bible that way: “Oh, Abimelech saw that Isaac was blessed when he saw that Isaac’s flocks had increased, so he came and just wanted to make this covenant.”  Do you see how uninteresting that is when you stay on that level of Bible interpretation?  You are losing not only the depth of meaning, but you are losing the very thing that makes the Bible so mysterious and so dynamic, and so interesting to the child of God.  There is that level of hidden truth that they (the churches) do not even look for.  We know we are to look for it.  We may not always find it, but by God’s grace, we know we are to look for it.

So we know the statement in verse 29 where Abimelech said, “That thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee,” ties in with 1John 5:18:

We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

Abimelech is a type of Satan, and you find this word “touch” every time in the context where Abimelech appears, because that is the way God is letting the reader know that he is a figure of the “wicked one.”  You have to look at him as if he is Satan. 

And, yet, it is hard when we see that Abimelech, a type of Satan, comes to Isaac, a type of Christ, and they meet together at a time that we had thought, spiritually, related to the time of Judgment Day.  Why are they having a feast?  Why is Isaac sending them away, and they depart in peace?  Where is the battle of Judgment Day?

You see, there is a battle of Judgment Day.  There was also a battle that raged throughout the history of the world over the souls of men.  It was the battle of evangelism, as the Word of God went forth or as Christ went forth, conquering and to conquer, to set the prisoners free.  Remember in Luke 4 when Jesus went into the synagogue, it says in Luke 4:17-19:

And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

It was the day of salvation.  That is what Christ was preaching, the day of salvation that would set the captives free.  It was the Jubilee, as He was the essence of that Jubilee when He was born in the Jubilee Year of 7 B. C.  And when He was announced at the beginning of His ministry on a day of atonement that identified with the Jubilee.  And then the “Jubilee” took place, spiritually, over the course of the entire church age, until the church age came to an end in 1988.  Then, again, in September 1994, it was the “second Jubilee,” the second time of delivering the captives, until its conclusion on May 21, 2011.  And at that point, God had delivered all those that were to be delivered, and the time of deliverance came to an end.  That meant that Satan’s resistance and opposition and his fighting against the Word of God that had gone into all the world ended, and that ended that battle.

Now we should not read more into it than that.  We know there are other Scriptures, like Revelation 19, where Christ is on a white horse and all the armies in heaven (the elect) are with Him, and they go forth to battle.  And that is the battle of Judgment Day, and that is another matter.  That battle is being fought in a very different way than the battle over souls, the salvation of sinners that took place within the boundaries of the day of salvation. 

And, here, the “peace” that is struck by covenant is that, basically, God can strike this deal.  God can strike his end of the bargain by saying, “I will no longer go into your house and spoil your goods.  I will no longer open up your prison to deliver prisoners.  I will no longer set captives free.”  On the other end, Satan has nothing to resist.  He has nothing to fight back against, so he can have peace in this area.  And, therefore, Isaac made a feast, and we may talk about that a little later.  I will just say now that the word “feast” is also translated as “banquet” ten times.  I believe this Hebrew word translated as “feast” is found forty-six times in the Old Testament, and it is translated as “banquet” ten times from Esther 5 through Esther 7, where Esther made a “banquet of wine” and invited Haman.  Haman, a type of Satan, was invited to the “banquet of wine.”  It is “Satan” meeting with God, as pictured by King Ahasuerus, and the people of God, as typified by Esther.  It was at that banquet that Haman, finally, was taken and hanged, and we can show from the Bible that this likely took place on “the seventeenth day of the second month,” of the calendar used in the book of Esther.  That “seventeenth day of the second month” ties in with the underlying date of the flood and the underlying date in the Hebrew calendar for May 21, 2011, the day that Satan was spiritually killed, put down and deposed from all official rule.  And he lost his “house,” just as Haman lost rule over his house, and Mordecai the Jew, a type of Christ, was set up to rule his kingdom.  And that is what has been happening since May 21, 2011 – Christ has been ruling the nations with a rod of iron.

So that explains why Isaac made them a feast or banquet in which they did eat and drink, and this can very well identify with Judgment Day and the time of Satan’s fall.  The peace that they agree upon in this covenant is that God will no longer attempt to deliver a soul because there is now no need to do that, as there are none to be delivered.  All those remaining are not of the elect.  They are not the ones whose names were recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  God know His elect very personally and very intimately, and He knows that the last of the elect has become saved.  So that sort of explains things here.

Now if we go to Isaiah 14, and I mentioned this in our last study, I just want to go over it a little bit better.  I will read Isaiah 14:13-14:

For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

Here, God is relaying to us the thoughts and desires of Satan, and it matches very well with what we read in 2Thessalonians 2 regarding the “man of sin.”  He achieved that when he was ruling in the churches and congregations and, yet, it goes on to say in Isaiah 14:15-17:

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?

That was the point of his resistance that we were just talking about wherein Satan, typified here by a man, the king of Babylon (especially King Nebuchadnezzar), would not release the captives.  Also, it reverts back to Pharaoh when he would not let the Israelites go when God commanded, “Let my people go.”  He refused, so God poured out His wrath, and there was a battle until, finally, all the Egyptians had died in the Red Sea, including Pharaoh.  And that points to Judgment Day.  You see, the battle raged over the captives, the Israelite slaves.  But, finally, God completely destroyed Pharaoh and his army, and there was peace.  And that is the kind of peace that is in view, spiritually, in this covenant between Isaac and Abimelech.   There is a peace wherein there is no more battle, because God has won.  He only wanted to release the captives.  That was His program.  It was very specific: “I am not come but for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  Christ did not come to save everyone, but only the specific lost sheep who God selected and appointed to attain salvation.  And they did attain it.  Once they were delivered, there was no more disagreement.  There was no more purpose to it.

If we go back to Isaiah 14:1, I want to read these verses because we will see that this is the time when Judgment Day has begun, and Satan has been defeated.  It says in Isaiah 14:1:

For JEHOVAH will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land…

That is, they will be set in the kingdom of heaven.  Then it goes on to say in Isaiah 14:1-2:

…and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of JEHOVAH for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.

This is the “turn of the tables,” or a turn of events.  Babylon judged the churches and after that 23 years, God turned around and judged Babylon.  Satan was ruling as king of the earth, but when Judgment Day came, Christ is ruling the earth as King of the earth.  He is ruling with a rod of iron.  And He has come with His saints, spiritually, so all the saints are ruling with Him: “Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?”  His reign is a judgment rule, and we are judging with Him and, therefore, we are ruling over the oppressors, the unsaved people of the world that are part of Babylon and  who were our oppressors.

It goes on to say in Isaiah 14:3:

And it shall come to pass in the day that JEHOVAH shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve,

The word “rest” is the same Hebrew word, #5117 in Strong’s Concordance, which was translated as “set” in Isaiah 14:1: “…and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land.”  I mentioned that “their own land” is referring to the kingdom of God.  That ties into the idea of “rest,”  where it says, “JEHOVAH shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve.”  We are freed from being a bondservant to sin and to Satan.  We no longer serve either one.  And this is not just speaking of individuals, but the whole company of the elect.  We have been freed, and that is the point being made here.

Then it says in Isaiah 14:4:

That thou shalt take up this proverb…

And, remember, the beginning of verse 3 had said, “And it shall come to pass in the day that JEHOVAH shall give thee rest,” and that is the Day of Judgment.  It is simultaneous.  He saved all the elect and then May 21, 2011 was Judgment Day, and that was the day being referred to in Isaiah 14:4:

That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!

The king of Babylon is Satan and the “golden city” is Babylon itself, the kingdom of this world.

Then it says in Isaiah 14:5:

JEHOVAH hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers.

They do not rule over us anymore.  They are not oppressing us as they were previously.  Again, God has turned the tables.  They are not the instruments of judgment upon the people of God, the camp of the saints, or anybody else.  God is now targeting them for judgment. 

Then it says in Isaiah 14:6:

He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger…

This is referring to the devil, who kept “beating” his captives, as it were.  He had ruled the nations in anger.  Recently we did a study where we discussed that Satan had deceived Adam who had been given rule and dominion over the earth, and by the right of conquest, Satan became ruler and lord over the earth.  He became king of the earth and, therefore, he ruled the nations in anger.  Again, it says in Isaiah 14:6:

He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth.

Now listen to what it says next.  This is an important statement.  It goes on to say in Isaiah 14:7-8:

The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.

Remember that the “cedars of Lebanon” represent the righteous, so now no one is cutting down those cedars or coming against the righteous, because Satan has been laid down in the condition of hell, as the world and the nations have been turned into hell.  And because of this, the whole earth is at rest, and that is the same word “rest” that we saw in verses 1 and 3.  It is the idea that the warfare has been accomplished.  It is completed, and now there is a quietness in that area.  In other words, God’s people are no longer printing the tracts, “Does God Love you?”, and we are no longer going out to evangelize on tract trips to cities with the message, “Will you read this, that God might save you and have mercy on you?  Will you not cry out for mercy?”  There is none of that.  We are not even giving a hint of that at EBible Fellowship.  We are not saying that at all because we know there will be no conversions with anyone becoming saved.  The warfare in that area is over, except for false gospels that were never really engaged in the battle because they were always part of Satan’s kingdom.  But as far as the kingdom of God and the truth of the Gospel and its faithful declaration, there is no movement of any kind to deliver a captive, and this has produced “rest” and “quiet” and a “breaking forth into singing.”  The word “singing” in Isaiah 14:7 is the same word used back in 2Chronicles 20:22, where the Israelites began to sing and JEHOVAH set ambushments, and all the enemy armies destroyed one another.  They killed one another, and the army of Jehoshaphat had no cause or occasion to fight in that battle.