Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #18 of Genesis, chapter 27, and we going to be reading Genesis 27:43-46:

Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran; And tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's fury turn away; Until thy brother's anger turn away from thee, and he forget that which thou hast done to him: then I will send, and fetch thee from thence: why should I be deprived also of you both in one day? And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?

I will stop reading there.  We have been spending some time discussing Rebekah and looking at who she is a type and figure of, and this has been kind of a surprise to me.  I had only looked at Rebekah before as a type and figure of God’s elect, as the bride of Isaac.  But that does not fit with this chapter, and we have already gone over various reasons for this, as she commanded Jacob to obey her voice, again, and again, and she arranged the blessing.  Once we understand that the blessing is the blessing of salvation, then we begin to see who she is representing.  She was someone with very deep knowledge of the spiritual conditions of her sons, and she worked and arranged for Jacob to obtain the blessing.  Likewise, she worked for Esau not to obtain it.  So that can only fit the Law of God, the Bible.  Ultimately, it would point to the Lord Jesus Christ and using the Word to orchestrate events and bring salvation to His people over the course of history.

We have discussed all that, but now we have come to the point after Rebekah had arranged for Jacob to get the blessing, and now she is going to protect him.  He is the favored one.  He is the one who received the blessing of the firstborn.

And she knew, mysteriously, of Esau’s plot, even though Esau had said this in his heart.  Of course, the Lord Jesus would know the inner thoughts of Esau.  But Rebekah found out somehow, historically, that Esau was plotting to kill his brother, and she acted.  She talked to Jacob and said, “Arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran; And tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's fury turn away.”   She, apparently, does not mention a wife to Jacob, but notice what she said to Isaac, in Genesis 27:46:

I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?

She does not tell Isaac about Esau’s plot.  It is a different matter with him, and it was probably true that she was concerned about both of these things, and they both happened to coincide, and it would be a solution for both if Jacob would flee to Haran.  It would protect Jacob from his brother’s fury, and Jacob could find a wife, just as Rebekah was found by Abraham’s servant and brought from Haran to marry Isaac.  So it seems to be the perfect solution and, additionally, it would help to get Jacob away from the women of the area because Esau had already married some heathen wives.  So Rebekah went to Isaac, and we are not going to get into chapter 28 because we will go back over this when we study chapter 28, but notice it says in Genesis 28:1-5:

And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother's father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother's brother. And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people; And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham. And Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went to Padanaram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and Esau's mother.

Then it tells us in Genesis 28:7:

And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram;

So it was a major decision.  It is always a time of trouble and a fearful time whenever one of your children goes away, but it had to be so, and that is what we want to look at before we close our study of chapter 27 and move on to the next chapter, and that is that Jacob left his parents and went to Haran in the land of Syria.  And he is doing so to flee from his brother’s wrath because Esau wanted to kill him, and, simultaneously, to find a wife.  So this is the overall mission and, certainly, Jacob was not a young man.  He was 60 years old and Isaac, his father, was 120.  Isaac had married Rebekah when he was 40, and he had Jacob and Esau when he was 60, so it is time for Jacob to find a wife, so he is leaving.  What is he leaving?  He is going to leave the temporary tent of his father and mother, but where was that tent set up?  It was set up in the land of Canaan.  That is why Rebekah said she was “weary” of her life.  Remember we looked at that word in Leviticus, and it has to do with the Law of God “abhorring” those that break His Law, and Rebekah was weary or abhorring of her life because of the daughters of Heth, if Jacob were to take a wife of the daughters of Heth.  It was said at the end of the verse in Genesis 28:1:

… Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan.

Heth was in the land of Canaan.  Heth is where Abraham purchased that grave site in the land of Canaan, Jacob and Esau had lived together all their lives.  They had grown up together, and they had been as close as brothers could be, being twins.  But now when it came time that his father determined to give the blessing of the firstborn, Jacob received that blessing, they can no longer dwell together and there is a separation between them.  It was an absolute must.  It was a necessary separation.  He simply cannot stay, for his own protection, and his mother determined and commanded, “Obey my voice and flee.”  And that is the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and God Himself determining that there would come a point in time wherein the brethren – the ones that profess to be Christians and brothers in Christ – who are the wheat and tares that have grown together during the church age can no longer continue to dwell together.  It is the time of harvest.  It is the time when God would say, as we read in Matthew 13:30:

Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

I think we can say this is a picture of the end of the church age, the time when God had decided to separate the wheat from the tares, or the elect from the unsaved, that had been “brothers” within the churches and congregations. 

And how did we come to learn those things, for those of us that are alive today and have gone through the Great Tribulation?  How did we come to learn about the end of the church age?  It was through the Word of God, the Bible.  How did we come to know that we had to flee the churches and congregations and depart out of that midst and to go, as it were, “out of the land of Canaan” or the kingdom of God?  The outward representation of the kingdom of God on earth was the corporate church, just as the land of Canaan was used as a symbol to represent God’s kingdom on earth, as well as the future kingdom of the new heaven and new earth.  How did we know it was time to flee and to go to the mountains?  We knew because God opened up His Word at the time of the end, and the Word of God, the Bible, revealed it.  The Holy Spirit used the Word of God and opened up the Scriptures to the understanding of the people of God, and it commanded us to leave and to depart out of the midst of Judaea, and go to the mountains.  It was just as Rebekah commanded Jacob: “Obey my voice and arise, and go to my brother Laban to Haran.”

Then there was the separation.  Esau stayed back and he remained in the land of Canaan for some time.  And Jacob left, and he did go to Haran, obedient to his mother’s voice, as well as his father, because his father was brought into this decision.  You know, when Rebekah spoke to Isaac, it was like the counsel of the Godhead, the counsel of the Almighty.  Of course, God is One, and the things the Word declares is what God Himself has declared, so Jacob obeyed his father and mother, his parents, and in doing so, there would be long life, or eternal life, because he has received the blessing.  He is picturing those that God has saved.

And Jacob left, just as when all God’s elect heard the command to come out of the congregations and to go out into the world, and all God’s elect obeyed that were found in the congregations.  Not all that came out were God’s elect, but, certainly, all God’s elect did come out and no one remained behind, because the ones remaining behind were the tares.  They were bundled for the burning.  When May 21, 2011 came, that is the first thing that was done – wrapping up the tares and casting them into the fire.  It was all settled and all done.

But for those that came out, God had some more testing to do, and there was the matter of being like wheat gathered into the barn, which Matthew 3 relates to judgment.  Let us look at Matthew 3:11-12:

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

So it is related to this future “baptism,” and that ties in with Judgment Day, but that is the continuing of the story for the Day of Judgment, which we will not get into at this point.

But, as far as the separation of the wheat and tares, we could say that it was in 1994 (after the 2,300 evening mornings) that was the “official” end of the church age, because it was not until September 7, 1994 that God, once again, stretched forth His hand to recover the remnant of His people by sending the Latter Rain outside of the churches and congregations to save that great multitude.  That was key because there were always periods of “rain” followed by “famine.”  There was the early rain wherein the firstfruits in the churches were brought in, and then there was the 2,300 evening mornings of famine, wherein virtually no one would become saved.  Then it was not until September 7, 1994 that it was “official” that the Latter Rain would only fall outside the churches.  So when no rain fell within the churches, that settled it – God was not going to use the churches to bring in the final fruits.  He was going to use a different method, and He would use His people that He had placed outside of the corporate church.  Therefore, we could officially know that there was not just a temporary famine in the churches, but then God would use the churches again.  When September 7, 1994 came, and God did not use them, then it became official that the church age was over, and God was no longer using them to accomplish His salvation program.

So from 1994, we know there is a 40-year period until the year 2033, for which there is strong Biblical evidence indicating it will be the conclusion of the prolonged Judgment Day that began on May 21, 2011.  It is the “second tribulation,” after the first (the Great Tribulation), and this present time is the “recompence of tribulation.”  The year 2033, according to Biblical evidence, apparently, will end it, and that would be 40 inclusive years from 1994.  That is significant in this account because Jacob was 60 when his mother Rebekah, a picture of the Law or Word of God, commanded him to flee.  He was to flee for his life.

And, by the way, remember that this was the condition that was taking place in church, after church, early on in the Great Tribulation, as it says in John 16:1-2:

These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh…

And the word “time” is a Greek word that can be translated as “hour,” as in the “hour” of Great Tribulation.  Again it says in John 16:2:

… yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.

When we tie the two together – being driven out of the synagogues, a spiritual picture of the corporate church with being killed –this was Esau’s desire.  He wanted to kill his brother.  That was the condition of the churches at the time of the end, with their false gospels and false teachings.  The elect were troubled and uncomfortable and could not bear these things, so the teachings of the ungodly drove us out.  Early on, we would go from church, to church, to church and it was always the same story, again, and again, and again.   We could not find a faithful congregation.  In one area they were using the NIV and teaching free will.  “Oh, I cannot believe the things they are teaching our children in Sunday School.  The music is awful – it is the world’s music that has seeped in.  And women are teaching in this other church.”  And there was just problem, after problem, that caused the elect to leave, and we were being “spiritually killed,” until the point that God opened up His Word and commanded us, “Get out!  Get out!  They are trying to kill you.”  Ultimately, it was Satan that had been loosed and set up in the churches, and he was working behind the scenes to destroy the people of God.  So God commanded us to get out and flee to the mountains: “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so JEHOVAH is round about his people…”  And the only way we can flee to God is through fleeing to the Bible, as the Bible represents God and His kingdom, the eternal God and the eternal kingdom.  And that is what happened.

So Rebekah commanding Jacob to flee is picturing this.  And then he did flee.  How long would he be in Haran?  We will have to show this when we get to those chapters, but Jacob will be in Haran for 40 years from the point that his mother and father commanded him to separate from his brother and flee to Haran until, finally, after obtaining a large family and a multitude of sheep, it was time for him to leave Haran in Syria and return to Canaan. 

At this point, it is off in the distance, and we will have to go through several chapters, but it would appear that the picture is that it would be 40 more years – from 1994 to 2033 – and then the return to Canaan.  But the picture will be that it is not a return to the corporate church, but a return, as it were, to the eternal kingdom that the land of Canaan represented when the Lord promised it to Abraham for an everlasting possession.  That appears to be the deeper, spiritual meaning here.

Of course, we also know from Hosea 12 that there is this statement made in Hosea 12:12:

And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep.

For a wife…the bride of Christ comes into view again.  In this case, “Israel,” the prince of God, and it is a dual picture, as the Lord worked through the elect and that the great multitude would be saved.  So just as Jacob went out of Canaan and then would return to Canaan, representing the kingdom of God, with a great multitude and with a wife, so, too, God’s elect left the churches and congregations.  We went outside where God saved the great multitude, and that great multitude combined to form the bride of Christ.  Then, additionally, God commanded, “Feed my sheep,” because the sheep are the same as the bride.  That is the picture we will see when Jacob is in the house of Laban, and Laban is defrauding him for a long period of time, but God worked in Jacob’s favor so Jacob would receive a great multitude of cattle and sheep, and then he left with them. 

And that is our expectation, is it not?  The great multitude, at the end of 40 inclusive years, will leave this world.  The Lord Jesus Christ will leave with His bride and His sheep.