Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #13 of Genesis, chapter 27, and we are going to read Genesis 27:37-40:

And Isaac answered and said unto Esau, Behold, I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren have I given to him for servants; and with corn and wine have I sustained him: and what shall I do now unto thee, my son? And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept. And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.

I will stop reading there.  As we have seen, Esau’s exceeding bitter cry and weeping to his father that there might be a blessing for him in reserve has to do with Judgment Day.  And the Bible says, “…the mighty man shall cry there bitterly.”   It has to do with that time period wherein God has ceased to give any further blessing (of salvation).  All His elect children have received the blessing, and that is the historical situation with Jacob going out, and Esau coming in.  Then Isaac asked Esau, “Who art thou?”  And then he said that the one that received the blessing has been blessed, and he has no further blessing to give except an earthly blessing.  This was not the blessing Esau was looking for (at this time), but he was looking for the blessing of the firstborn, which we know ties into salvation.  Isaac’s response to Esau is basically Christ’s response to those that would come to the door once it has been shut and seek to enter in, saying,  “Have you no more salvation for me, O, Father?”  There could be earnest, sincere weeping and supplication to God, but it is all outside the proper time and season, and God says in Hebrews 12 that Esau “sought it (repentance) carefully with tears,” but he was rejected, and repentance identifies with salvation, in the Bible.  He was seeking the blessing of his father and did not receive that blessing because it had already been given.

How much clearer can this be?  How much better could the Bible paint a picture that identifies with our present time period, once we have the understanding that God shut the door on May 21, 2011 because He had already saved everyone He intended to save?  There is no one else.  He cannot save anyone in addition to His elect.  It is only God’s elect that were chosen before the foundation of the world and whose sins were laid upon Christ at the point of the world’s foundation in eternity past.  These are the only ones that can possibly become saved, and now have become saved.

And, yet, we find people approaching God, using the Bible to try to obtain salvation.  On what grounds?  Whence are they?  “I know ye not whence you are.”   That is what Jesus said in Luke 13.  “You do not identify with the firstfruits – you are not among those saved during the church age.  And you do not identify with the final fruits brought in during the little season of the Great Tribulation when the great multitude was saved.  You were not among them, so where do you come from?  What (season) do you identify with?” 

But, you see, these people are not interested in any of that.  They just want salvation.  And there is nothing wrong with wanting salvation, but the problem is that they want it on their terms in their timetable, and they are stubbornly and rebelliously insisting, “Lord, Lord, open the door!”  But God is in charge of the door.  God is sovereign regarding the opening and shutting of the door of heaven, and concerning whom He saves and whom He does not save.  God is the one that made determination to love Jacob and to hate Esau, so when Esau approaches, and the “Esaus” have been approaching God in various ways since Judgment Day began.  And as people try to get the Bible to say there is still ongoing salvation, it is as if they are coming to the door of heaven seeking entry, but God is rejecting them, again, and again, and again.

So we have seen that, and we have discussed that in some detail, but then it goes on here, and it is pointed out to Esau that he will serve his brother.  We have discussed that before, but it is being brought up again, where God is indicating, “I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren have I given to him for servants.”  That refers to Esau.  Esau is servant to Jacob. 

Remember when we saw that the Lord Jesus Christ in becoming man is in view when Jacob wore the clothing of his brother Esau, and his mother put the skin of goats on his hand so he would be hairy, and she made the venison for him?  That was a picture of Christ becoming man.  Again, Esau is called “Edom,” a name that identifies with mankind.  So in that instance, Jacob is a type and figure of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that explains why all are made servants to him, because that is the position of Lord that belongs to Jesus.  So Christ is made Lord, and there is a period of time when Esau does service to Him. 

Now this service could be seen in various ways.  For those that were unsaved and entered into the churches and congregations, to some degree they did service to Jesus Christ, or, at least, they professed service to Him.  And the people of the world have the Law of God written on their hearts, and God’s Spirit made sure they were obedient to some of these Laws to some degree.  In so doing, they were doing service to the Lord Jesus Christ.  But Isaac also said, as he was prophesying what God moved him to say, in Genesis 27:39-40:

…Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.

Now that is curious, and it makes us wonder because this is being said to Esau concerning Jacob’s dominion over him.  Again, we understand this to be the Lord Jesus Christ, and all the elect are in Christ, so Jacob is actually representing both.  And as the elect side with Christ, His Word, and His kingdom, it could be said, in that sense, that service was done to us as well.  But, primarily, it is the Lord Jesus that will have service done to Him by the unsaved in the congregations and outside the congregations in the world.  However, there would come a time, as it says, “…and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.”  That is language indicating that there would come a time when service to Christ in the churches and in the world would no longer take place, and where the unsaved people would rise up, in a sense, in some way.  Of course, they have always been rebels, but whatever service they had been doing, they would no longer do. 

And when we search the Bible, we find that this identifies with God’s end time judgment program that began at the house of God, because the working of the Holy Spirit was operating in the midst of the congregations to keep some semblance of faithfulness, to some degree, so that the churches could function.  And it did function, to the degree that God intended for it to function.  It carried out its mission, and the firstfruits were saved and brought in over the course of the 1,955 years of the church age.  But when we got to the time of the end (1988), the service that the corporate church had been performing to the Lord Jesus Christ finally came to an end.  They were given up by God, and Christ departed out of the midst, and they were turned over into the hands of Satan.  So the “yoke” that was on their necks that had been placed there by the Lord, in a sense, is broken, and they placed themselves under the yoke of Satan, “the king of Babylon.”  And that was fully in keeping with the will of God.  You could read Jeremiah 27, where God commands the nations, including Jerusalem and Judah, to bring their necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon.  That is a spiritual picture pointing to the time when Satan would be loosed, and he entered into the corporate church to take his seat as the man of sin, sitting in the temple showing himself that he is God.  At that point, service is commended to the king of Babylon or Satan.  They had to serve him.  It was not service to Christ (spiritual Jacob) any longer, but it was service to Satan, and this time period is spoken of in Revelation 13, where we read of the beast that came up out of the sea.  The first couple of verses is a picture of the loosing of Satan who had been bound in the bottomless pit; that is, he was in the condition of hell for a figurative “thousand years,” the duration of the church age.  But the church age came to an end in 1988, and Satan was loosed and came up out of sea, a picture of hell, just like the bottomless pit.  It says in Revelation 13:3:

And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

That is, Satan had suffered a “death blow” when the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross, and that was the time of Satan’s binding, and it severely impacted the rule of his kingship over the course of the church age, where he had limitations placed on him by God regarding the salvation of those that would become known as “the firstfruits,” those that would be saved within the churches and congregations.

But now his deadly wound had been healed from that death blow.  He was back to full strength, and even stronger at the time of the end, as it goes on to say in Revelation 13:4-8:

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

All whose names were not written worshipped Satan.  Another way to say that would be to say, “Esau,” because Jacob typify the elect, and the elect have their names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and the elect are loved by God, but Esau is hated, and Esau represents those whose names were not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  They remain in their sins, under the wrath of God.  So, at this time of the end, which began with the loosing of Satan and the judgment commencing at the house of God, the corporate church, it is at that time that Satan, who had overcome the camp of the saints, became lord and ruler and had dominion.  And Esau identifies with Satan, just as God’s elect identify with Christ.  Actually, you know, this is something we can see when we look at Mark 3, where God is discussing the fall of Satan and his end, which is happening right now, and it says in Mark 3:24-26:

And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.

We can see that each of these statements is synonymous with the other statements.  “Kingdom,” “house” and “Satan” are all synonyms for the unsaved of the world.  I want to be clear about this: Satan is an evil spirit.   He is a fallen angel.  He truly exists, and he was the prince of this world before Christ took it from him (on May 21, 2011), and, yet, God is using him in the sense of the people of the world, because Satan is a spirit being and because we cannot see him, but so we could know that He has suffered a terrible judgment upon him when we see his “house” falling and his kingdom falling.  That is, the unsaved people of the world or the nations of the earth rising up against one another is evidence of Satan’s “division,” because they are aligned with him, just as the people of God are aligned with the Lord Jesus Christ.  And, of course, there is a Lord Jesus Christ.  There is that Spirit of God and, yet, God can speak of His people and identify us as His “body,” or those that are so closely and intimately related to him that if you “clothe them,” you have closed Jesus Himself, or if you “feed them,” you have fed the Lord Jesus Himself, as it says in Matthew 25. 

The point is that when we got to the time of the end and the churches or the body of Christ had been overcome, then Satan had the dominion, and the unsaved that are aligned with him and identify with him, likewise, have the dominion.  Esau then had dominion over his brother Jacob, in a way that was never in view in previous generations as it was in view at the time of the end in such an unparalleled manner.

We can see this is also addressed in the little book of Obadiah in the Old Testament.  It is a one-chapter book right before the book of Jonah.  We read in Obadiah 1:10:

For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever.

God is speaking to Esau.  You can read the earlier verses where he is mentioned and, of course, it would be the Edomites that are his descendants.  God is using them as a figure of the unsaved, in general, which have done violence to their brother Jacob.  Then it says sin Obadiah 1:11:

In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.

This is speaking, spiritually, of when judgment began at the “house of God” on May 21, 1988.  Here, Jerusalem is being set up as a type and figure of the corporate church.  Let us continue, in Obadiah 1:12-16:

But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress. Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, thou shouldest not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity; Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of his that did escape; neither shouldest thou have delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress. For the day of JEHOVAH is near upon all the heathen: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head. For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.

You see, this is very similar language to what God says of Babylon in Revelation 18:6: “Reward her even as she rewarded you…”    And that is because Esau is completely identified with Babylon and the king of Babylon and with Satan and his kingdom, the nations of this world.  So in the reference here in Genesis 27 where it says that Jacob would be Esau’s lord and Esau would serve him, it also says that the yoke would (later) be broken, and Esau would have the dominion.  And that was at the time of the end, specifically, the 23 years of the Great Tribulation period from May 21, 1988 through May 21, 2011.  And since the point of May 21, 2011, Satan no longer has dominion.  It is Judgment Day, the day of reckoning, and the day of vengeance, wherein God is destroying Esau – first, with a spiritual judgment, and, finally, with the literal, physical destruction of Satan and all the unsaved people of the earth.

So we can see how God views what happened to the church as a personal affront to Him, it says in Jeremiah 51:34:

Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out.

This is God speaking, and He is saying that what the king of Babylon did to Judah…and we always have to look at the deeper spiritual meaning…was like devouring God personally; crushing Him; making God like an empty vessel; swallowing God up like a dragon, and so forth.  It was all viewed as action against God, so it goes on to say in Jeremiah 51:35:

The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say.

The “inhabitant of Zion,” singular, is the Lord Jesus Christ, and the violence done to Him and His flesh refers to the fact that the churches were made up of “flesh and spirit,” or those that walked in the flesh and those that walked in the spirit, or the carnally-minded and the spiritually-minded, or those that were unsaved and the truly saved.  And the judgment destroyed the “flesh,” because God had called His people out of the midst, and the spiritual ones left the churches, leaving the fleshly ones behind for their destruction.  And although the latter were carnally minded and never truly born again, they were professed believers and they identified with the kingdom of God and with God Himself.  Therefore, not a finger ought to have been raised against them, because it was as though it was raised against “God’s anointed,” so God would take vengeance.  It was the vengeance of His temple, and that is why He is judging Babylon, judging the kingdom of Satan, and judging Satan himself for his period of dominion during those 23 years that he ruled over the corporate churches and in the world in a way like never before.