Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #10 of Genesis, chapter 27, and we are reading Genesis 27:30-33:

And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. And he also had made savoury meat, and brought it unto his father, and said unto his father, Let my father arise, and eat of his son's venison, that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac his father said unto him, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn Esau. And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, Who? where is he that hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? yea,and he shall be blessed.

We have been looking at this passage in various ways, and looking at the deeper spiritual meaning.  We saw in our last study that it matches up very well with Matthew 7 when the Lord Jesus said there would be many in that day that would come knocking at the door, saying, “Lord, Lord!”  And He will say, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”  And that ties in with Isaac’s surprised statement when Esau came walking in with the venison.  Esau’s full expectation was to receive the blessing.  He had come in, just as Jacob had gone out after pretending to be Esau.  The way we can understand this is that Jacob’s obtaining of the blessing points to Christ who obtained the blessing on behalf of His people.  His people are also typified by Jacob (the elect).  And God has been giving out “the blessing” over the course of history, up until the date of May 21, 2011, the day that the Great Tribulation concluded, and Judgment Day began.

And what does the Bible tell us in Matthew 24:29?  “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened.”    So as Jacob goes out the door, that is the end  of the Great Tribulation, the end of the Latter Rain period, and the end of God’s blessing  – all that were to be blessed have been blessed.  Jacob is that figure of the chosen people, the elect people of God, that have all received the blessing of salvation through the hearing of the Word and, therefore, God ended His blessing (of salvation).  As it says, “Jacob was yet scarce gone out,” and then Esau came in.

And Esau is now presenting himself “immediately after the tribulation” when the sun is dark, the moon is no longer giving her light, and the stars are fallen.  Esau is coming when there is no more light of the Gospel.  There is no more water of the Gospel unto salvation.  There is no more blessing of life for evermore that the Father could bestow upon anyone else, because it was a limited atonement.

You see, we wonder sometimes how much of the true Gospel that certain individuals, like Family Radio listeners who listened to Mr. Camping for a long time, really know?  Do they understand limited atonement?  And I am referring to those that are fighting against what God has done in bringing the world into final judgment by shutting the door of heaven and putting out the light of the Gospel and drying up the waters of salvation (or any other figure the Bible uses).  Do they understand that it has always been a limited atonement, and that Christ died for specific souls and not for everyone?  He did not die for every human being.  He died for the elected individuals, those chosen by God: “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”  One chosen and one not chosen.  The one not chosen is left in his sins and under the wrath of God, and he must face the hatred of God and be destroyed, ultimately.  Are they not aware that salvation has always been for certain ones, the lost sheep of the house of Israel?  It is not for the goats.  It is for spiritual Israel that Christ came.

Yes – they say they are aware of this and understand this, but when they are confronted and faced with the Bible locking in the date of May 21, 2011, they resist, dispute and fight against it.  And they are, as it were, knocking on the door after the door is shut, when it is too late.  They come into the Father for blessing, but it is over and done with, and it is finished.  There is no more blessing to mete out.  If there were, God would certainly do so.  His people would certainly delight, and God would delight, because it was certainly His good pleasure that He saved whom He would save, and God’s people have that mindset as well.  We would come running with not just a drop of water, but with a whole bucket, willing and eager to share the Gospel of salvation with anyone: “Here,” and we would share the Word of God with them, like dipping the ladle into the water bucket, “have some water.  May it be that you are one of God’s elect, and God would have mercy on you.”  We would encourage them to beseech the Lord for mercy because mercy was still possible and available.

But – no – God has made this determination.  God has shut the door, not us, and we are simply doorkeepers.  God gave the “keys of heaven” to His people.  The key is the Word of God, the Bible, and the key in its proper time and season was able to open the door to heaven and allow entry in, as it says in Matthew 16:18-19:

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. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

But, as Mr. Camping often pointed out, the tense in the Greek indicates that it ought to be translated this way: “and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall having been bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall having been loosed in heaven.”  You see, God gave His people the keys of the Word of God, the keys of knowledge, and as we shared that Word it would be “binding” or “loosing,” and, yet, it was always accomplished according to the predetermined will of God in heaven, according to His salvation program that originated before the foundation of the world.  The works were finished before the foundation of the world, and all was being done throughout history to finally complete that work that God had started and determined to be carried out over the course of time until the end of the world.  (And this is not referring to just salvation, but to the work of judgment as well.)  But the prior action is always God’s:  “Here are the keys, and now you may loose that which was having been loosed, and now you may bind that which was having been bound.”   And God was the one who before had loosed and who before had bound.  He is the one that opens the door, and He is the one that shuts the door.  We are the doorkeepers, and we are following the instructions of God.

And that is what is in view when we came to Luke 13, which we read last time, but I will read it again.  It has everything to do with salvation.  It says in Luke 13:24-25:

Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door…

Who shut the door?  The master of the house, and are you or I the master of the house?  Absolutely not.  The best we can read of ourselves in the Bible is that we are lowly servants and doorkeepers.  We have been adopted, by the grace of God, into the family of God, but we are still servants of God.  We are born-again creatures that desire to do our master’s will, the Master of the house.  He is the One who shut the door in the Day of Judgment.  There is no question about that.

Now if God has shut the door, and He has left His people on the earth to go through the Day of Judgment, would He not make it known to us that the door is shut, so that we can properly act in our role as doorkeepers over this period of time that we are left on this earth?  And the answer is, “Yes.”  That is exactly what God would do, and it is what He is doing at this time.

So the Master of the house has risen up and shut to the door, and we know that in Genesis 7 God shut Noah in the ark, and his family and all the animals were safe and secure in the ark.  God shut the door.  Significantly, it was not Noah, but God who shut him in.  Then following the shut door, it says in Luke 13:25:

… and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us…

And, remember, this has to do with (seeking) salvation, and salvation is pictured as receiving the blessing.  Esau is coming in for blessing.  He is coming to the door of heaven, as it were, and he wants to be let in.  He was originally the rightful heir, the firstborn, and he has expectations of entering into the kingdom of God. 

Is it not interesting how many people of the world think they are going to heaven?  If you ask them, “Are you going to heaven?”  They say, “Yes, I am basically a good person.”  If you ask them, “Do you think you are going to heaven?”  They say, “Yes, I think I will go to heaven.”  Or, even more telling, when one of their loved ones dies and you say, “Where is your mother or father, your brother or sister, or your son or daughter?”  They will say, “Oh, they are in heaven.”  Overwhelmingly, people think that those that died are like saints that have gone to be with the Lord.   You know, the overwhelming number of people that die are unsaved because the overwhelming number of people alive are unsaved, so that would transfer over, as it were, upon the point of death.  And, yet, man has an expectation that he is going to heaven.  He is going to be with God and float around on a cloud, playing a harp.  He has a “juvenile understanding” of heaven and the whole process, but his church or his religion has told him to do certain basic things and he will get to heaven.  And he, of course, is willing to be convinced of that, so many have the expectation of Esau: “Now it is time for me to get the blessing.”  False gospels within so-called Christian churches feed upon this when they present their easy-believism type of gospels.  “Here is what you have to do.  Accept Christ, walk down the aisle, say the Sinner’s Prayer, and with the snap of the finger, you will be saved.”

So Esau is representing an enormous amount of people as he comes before his father seeking the blessing after it is too late.  And that means the overall timeline has to do with the Day of Judgment as Esau enters into his father’s house to obtain the blessing.  It identifies with Judgment Day.  We can see that.

I mentioned last time that here in Luke 13:25, after those that were without are knocking on the door, saying, “Lord, Lord, open unto us,” it goes on to say in Luke 13:25-27:

… and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.

Isaac asked Esau, “Who art thou?”  And we saw that was also similar to Matthew 7: “I never knew you.”  So there was a lack of recognition on the part of God regarding the one coming before Him.  And, yet, here in Luke 13, it is not saying, “I do not know who you are,” but Jesus is saying, “I know you not whence ye are,” and that is a very important distinction.  It is not the word “who,” but this word is the Greek word “poth'-en,” Strong’s #4159, and it is found twenty-eight times in the New Testament, and every time it is translated as “whence.”  It is never translated as “who” or as any word other than “whence.”  It is the word that is found in John 1:47-48:

Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.

Nathaniel was curious because the Lord had said something very good about him: “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!”  But Nathaniel did not know the Lord at this point; he had never met Him, so he said, “Whence knowest thou me?”  Then Jesus responded, “When thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.”  Now that is a very important answer because we know that the “fig tree” can represent Old Testament Israel or the New Testament church.  At this point, it was at the end of national Israel (as God’s representation) and the beginning of the New Testament church, so the “fig tree” is a little hard to place, spiritually, as far as Nathaniel is concerned.  He was apparently part of Israel, as Jesus said, “Behold an Israelite indeed.”  But, of course, Jesus was referring to him being part of spiritual Israel, a true man without guile, who was truly born again.  So it could apply to Old Testament Israel, but Nathaniel would be part of the New Testament churches that would shortly be forming.  Nathaniel was saying, “Whence knowest thou me?”  And Jesus said, “When thou wast under the fig tree,” and that is very interesting because the fig tree has to do with fruit, as the fig is the fruit of the fig tree, and God had a program of times and seasons for bringing in His fruit in their proper seasons.  We know there was the “early righteous rain” that fell over Israel, and it produced the fruit of the Lord Jesus Christ, the first of the firstfruits.  Then there was the “early rain” that fell over the course of the church age that produced the firstfruits, and Nathaniel could be considered to be part of the firstfruits because he would have been part of that congregation, from everything we can read about him in the Bible.  Then there was the Latter Rain that fell for the short little season during the last (about) seventeen years of the 23-year Tribulation, concluding on May 21, 2011.  So the Lord Jesus was saying that He knew Nathaniel “under the fig tree.”  Let us turn to Revelation 7, where we see this glorious scene of a great multitude that was viewed in heaven, which was after the 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, or 144,000 total, which Revelation 14 identified as the “firstfruits unto God,” so the previous verses had everything to do with spiritual fruit.  Then it says in Revelation 7:9:

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

The 144,000 (12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel) were the “firstfruits unto God,” pointing to all those saved over the course of the church age.  Then after this, there appeared the great multitude.  In God’s program of times and seasons, the church age would last from 33 A. D. to 1988, and then the Great Tribulation began with the grievous 2,300 evening mornings from May 21, 1988 through September 7, 1994, and then began the Latter Rain, and God sent forth the Gospel outside of the churches and congregations because the church age was over.  He then saved scores of millions of people from the nations of the world.  The only requirement was that they could only be saved outside of the corporate churches because the churches had been turned over to Satan for their destruction, and there was no Latter Rain or fruit within them.  The elect had been commanded to come out, and to flee out of the churches and go to the mountains.  And those saved during the Latter Rain were this “great multitude.”  (And, of course, they are still on the earth at this time, and it is this great multitude that God commands His people to feed in the Day of Judgment.)  So this was the great multitude, and then it goes on to say in Revelation 7:13:

And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

Where did they come from?  This is the same word “whence” that was used regarding Nathaniel, and in Luke 13 concerning those that were coming to the door after it was shut in the Day of Judgment: “I know ye not whence ye are.”

So Revelation 7:13 asks “Whence came they?”  And let us read the answer in Revelation 7:14:

And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

The answer to “Whence came they?” is “These are they which came out of great tribulation.”  The great multitude came out of Great Tribulation.  That is “whence they are.”  Very well.  Jesus knows, as typified by Nathaniel, of those “under the fig tree.”  He knows of the 144,000 firstfruits, and He knows the great multitude saved out of Great Tribulation.   The Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal God, knows of the seasons of rain and the fruits that would be produced.  He knows every soul that would be saved within the boundaries of the particular times and seasons for the falling of the rain and the producing of the fruit.

And that is the problem in Luke 13 when these people are coming after the door is shut.  And, remember, we know when the door was shut from the timeline of “yet seven days,” in Genesis 7.  It would be exactly 7,000 years from 4990 B. C. (the date of the flood) on the date of May 21, 2011, which was the seventeenth day of the second month in the Hebrew calendar, the very day that God had shut Noah and his family and the animals into the ark, and the rain began to fall.  It is the very Day of Judgment.  “When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are.”   He does not know where they originated.  “Where are you coming from?”  Of course, He knows them personally and He knows who they are and everything about their lives, but they are coming and presenting themselves as His people: “Lord, Lord!”  They are presenting themselves as those that have done mighty works in His name.  But He is saying, “Where are you from?  You are not part of the church age, because that is over.  You are not part of the great multitude.  That is over, as well.  The Great Tribulation has ended, and there are no more scheduled periods of rain.  There are no more scheduled fruits to come in.  Therefore, from whence are ye?  Who are you?” 

That is the question from God for anyone approaching Him now for salvation in this time period.