Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #5 of Genesis, chapter 28, and we will read Genesis 28:6-9:

And when Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padanaram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan; And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram; And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father; Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.

I will stop reading there.  We have seen that this event in the lives of Isaac, Rebekah and their sons Jacob and Esau is a spiritual picture revealing things that would take place at the time of the end.  We know it is the time of the end because God makes it known that one son has obtained the blessing and the other has not.  When we read other information in the Bible such as the parable of the wheat and tares in Matthew 13, we realize that it was not God’s program to reveal who were the wheat and who were the tares.  When the servants desired to do so, their master said, “No.  Do not try to uproot the tares lest you at the same time root up some of the wheat.  Let them both grow (together) until the harvest.”  And the “harvest” would be the “end of the age,” as the Greek word translated as “world” is “aiōn,” which can properly be translated as “age,” and in this case, it is the end of the church age.  At the end of the church age God began judgment on the city called by His name, the corporate church, that had identified with Him and called themselves Christians, and the process got under way. 

We have gone over many times that this process was completed over 23 full years (8,400 days) ending on May 21, 2011.  The separation was completed, and all the wheat had come out of the churches.  Whatever elect were in the congregations did come out.  That is not to say that all those that came out of the churches were saved.  No – we are not saying that.  It is obvious that a fair number of unsaved people did come out of the churches in response to that command to come out, but what we are saying is that all the elect were included in those that came out, although some unsaved came out as well, leaving behind nothing but tares.  That is the important point.

So in this account we just read in Genesis 28,  Esau saw and observed, and he was able to perceive that Jacob had gotten the blessing and was given the command to go out or depart from the land of Canaan.  And that is a picture of God commanding His people to come out of the churches.  That information was part of the overall revelation of God’s righteous judgment program that had been sealed up until the time of the end.  The seals were removed, and not long after that we learned the doctrine.  We were able to finally see what the book of Jeremiah was all about. 

And through hidden truth, God hides doctrine.  You know, that is something important we need to realize.  If we go to Mark 4, we read of the Lord Jesus, and it says in Mark 4:2:

And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine,

Then He proceeded to speak parable after parable, but the important point is that we are told that He taught them in parables, “and said unto them in his doctrine,” so the “parable” is being likened to “doctrine,” both with the fact that He taught in parables and with what it says in the second part of that verse: “said…in his doctrine.”  So we should not be surprised that at the time of the end, God opened up Scriptures that had been “hidden.”  And how did He hide them?  He hid them in parables.  Actually, the definition of a parable is “that which serves to hide truth.”  It could be an earthly story with a heavenly meaning, or it could be a very difficult verse.  Or it could be what on the surface appears to be a very easy verse, like John 3:16.  There are all kinds of hidden truths in John 3:16 that we have learned over just the last few decades.  That means it is in the form of a parable because it was hiding truth.  But this is why churches often rejected the whole idea that God’s judgment was upon them and that the church age was over: “What do you mean?  You are reading Scriptures in Jeremiah and Ezekiel where God found Judah unfaithful, and He judged them.  Yes, it is true He told them to go into Babylon, and He raised up Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, to destroy Judah and Jerusalem, and they took many Jews captive.  But what does that have to do with us in churches?”  Then God’s people respond, “In Matthew 24, it says that when we see the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place, then we are to flee to the mountains.”  But, still, they would respond, “But that refers to Judah.”  You see, that is their natural mind and their plain, literal understanding, which is their hermeneutic.  “You cannot do that, and you are trying to develop doctrine by saying that Judah represents the churches and the mountains represent some other thing.”  That is how they would put it, but the Bible says that the mountains can represent God and His Word.  But, you see, they could not perceive because of the lack of the Holy Spirit within them.  They did not have the Holy Spirit, so they had no way of spiritually discerning. 

But God’s people had the Spirit of Christ.  We had our eyes opened and our ears opened to hear spiritual things: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”  So at the time of the end, God is speaking through His language. 

There are many languages on earth.  There is English, French, Spanish, Chinese and many more.  But the language of God and His kingdom, that distant land of Heaven, is spiritual language.  So God speaks in His language at the time of the end, and His people are given the basic tools to discern it.  We have been handed the Bible with its instructions to “compare spiritual with spiritual,” and “scripture with scripture.”  The Law is spiritual, as Romans 7:14 tells us, which means we can compare any part of the Bible with any other part of the Bible, and that is “spiritual with spiritual.”  And as we do so, God defines His own Words and the Holy Ghost teaches and “speaks,” and slowly, definitions begin to emerge.  The “field” is the “world.”  The “rock” can equal “Christ.”  The “sea” can represent “hell” or the “grave,” or even “people,” as the Bible says, “the wicked are like the troubled sea.”  It is just like English words that can have one or two meanings.  But, slowly, we follow God’s way of coming to truth, and we begin to develop a vocabulary in this heavenly, spiritual language of God in which the Bible is written.  As we develop the spiritual vocabulary, we begin to see truth, for example, in the book of Jeremiah: “Oh, Judah is a picture of the churches.”  And that can be proven through the methodology of comparing spiritual with spiritual. 

And, therefore, when God destroyed Judah, who were His people or His representatives on the earth at that time, it is a picture of God destroying the churches at the time of the end.  That is why in Matthew 24, when it speaks of Judaea, it is obviously not talking about the land of Judah, because Christ had already cursed the “fig tree,” and very shortly thereafter the veil of the temple would be rent in twain.  And Jesus was answering His disciples’

question in that chapter: “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?”   It has everything to do with the time of the end, and the land of Judah at that time is of no consequence.  It is of no significance regarding the time of the end, except on the one point that God would use them as a “signpost” at the time when the fig tree was in leaf.  But other than that, fleeing Judaea has nothing to do with the physical land.  And, of course, because Christ spoke in parables, and without a parable He did not speak, we are to look for what Judaea represents.  Then comes the understanding, and with understanding, doctrine develops.  It is the doctrine that at the time of the end, God would end the church age, and the corporate church would become the last place an elect child of God should be found.  We were to flee and get out and go to the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God is represented by the Word of God, the Bible.  We were to flee to the Bible, outside of the churches.

And that was the time of separation, like the separation between Cain and Abel or Jacob and Esau.  And just as it was made known to Cain that his brother’s works were righteous and his own works were evil, the same understanding was made known to Esau: he saw Jacob get the blessing and not him.  And this is convicting.  It made him angry and furious, and just as Cain rose up and slew his brother, Esau desired to slay his brother.  But due to circumstances, his brother was able to flee away, and he was not able to kill him as Cain killed Abel.

Instead, Esau saw what was displeasing to his mother and father, and because he had hostility toward them as well, he willfully and arrogantly did what he knew would displease them.  He married a wife of the daughters of the land, a daughter of Ishmael, and he does so very purposefully.

First, let us look at what we can find in the Bible regarding this idea that the unsaved “see” the judgment of God.  They “see” God giving the blessing to the elect, as typified by Jacob, and not to them.  I found a couple of verses, and one has to do with the Great Tribulation and the other has to do with the Day of Judgment.  I am sure there are others, but these are the two that stood out to me.  Let us go to Ezekiel 12 where the Lord came to the prophet and said, in Ezekiel 12:2-3:

Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house. Therefore, thou son of man, prepare thee stuff for removing, and remove by day in their sight; and thou shalt remove from thy place to another place in their sight: it may be they will consider, though they be a rebellious house.

These verses have everything to do with God’s command to depart out of the churches, and one of the reasons that God commanded His people to do this in a very quiet way by hiding and sneaking out the back door of a church and not going back. No – we were to make it known, and we were to say, “Pastor, I am sorry, but it is the time of the end of the church age.  The Word of God, the Bible, has revealed that the church age is over, and it has revealed a command that the people of God are to leave the congregations.  So I am just letting you know why I will not be back.”  That individual within that congregation could tell their friends or tell the elders, and in this way these people would witness this.  And although God says they would “have eyes to see, and see not, and ears to hear, and hear not,” perhaps, they might consider because they were witnessing on a physical level that you were actually leaving the church.  One person could influence a family in one church or just a single individual, but in another church, it could be two families, so this could have had a definite impact.  It would at least make them think and, perhaps, force them to discuss it.  So God commanded that this be done “in their sight.” 

And the declaration concerning the end of the church age was “not done in a corner,” as the Bible says of the Lord Jesus Christ and His ministry.  Family Radio was a well-known institution outside of the churches for decades, and Mr. Camping was a well-known figure to the churches and congregations.  And Family Radio had a worldwide platform through their radio ministry that really stretched into many parts of the world, and this message was going out consistently for several years, day after day, day after day: “The church age is over.  God has ended that relationship, and the Holy Spirit has departed out of the midst.  Satan has been loosed and has entered in, so why would you want to go to a place where God is not there, and Satan is there?  The devil is seated in the temple, showing himself that he is God, seated as the man of sin.”  All those things were declared, and study after study was being presented, and it was doctrine coming forth from the Word of God, the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.  It was the doctrine of Christ because it came via parables, and the churches “heard,” and there was a fury brewing there.  Their anger was getting worse and worse. 

And what was the reaction of the churches?  Did they humble themselves?  Did they call for a church synod or council to come together to examine the Scriptures?  No – the only thing they did was to reject it and refuse it, and speak evil of those bringing that doctrine.  They spoke evil of the very idea, so it hardened them in their sins, just as Esau.  And they knew what it meant, and they understood what was being taught and that it was information coming forth from the Bible.  Since this was tied to the parable of the wheat and tares, it clearly meant that God was calling His elect out of the churches, and the tares would be left behind.   That was taught directly to their faces.  It was not being covered up or hidden.  It was being presented to them.  They heard that Satan was there and that continuing to go to their church was akin to worshipping Satan, not God.  But they stayed, and they did even more wickedly than before, and their doctrines went even further astray, and the churches as a whole would become more apostate.  You know, there is seemingly no bottom to the depths of depravity that men can descend into, and when it comes to the churches, the way that is viewed is through the erroneous teachings, doctrines and gospels that just kept getting stranger and uglier and more astray from truth and from that narrow path. 

So it was like they are saying, “Well, you say that these are the blessed ones, and we are not,” and in anger, they just continued on, shaking their fists at God.  “We will not listen.”

By the way, this would also relate to the information in Jeremiah 42, and it actually stretches into Jeremiah 43, but beginning in Jeremiah 42, it says in Jeremiah 42:1-2:

Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even unto the greatest, came near, And said unto Jeremiah the prophet, Let, we beseech thee, our supplication be accepted before thee, and pray for us unto JEHOVAH thy God, even for all this remnant; (for we are left but a few of many, as thine eyes do behold us:)

You see, they refer to themselves as “remnant and few.”  They are trying to say, “We are the elect.  We understand that the churches, for the most part, are corrupt and apostate.  But were the reformers.  We are the faithful few.”  It is as though they hear these things and they are taking it seriously as they come to the man of God, Jeremiah, who was the primary source God used to teach these things concerning the judgment of God upon Judah and the command to go into captivity to Babylon.  And, again, this spiritually relates to God’s judgment on the corporate church and the command to come out.  Then it says in Jeremiah 42:3-6:

That JEHOVAH thy God may shew us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do. Then Jeremiah the prophet said unto them, I have heard you; behold, I will pray unto JEHOVAH your God according to your words; and it shall come to pass, that whatsoever thing JEHOVAH shall answer you, I will declare it unto you; I will keep nothing back from you. Then they said to Jeremiah, JEHOVAH be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not even according to all things for the which JEHOVAH thy God shall send thee to us. Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of JEHOVAH our God, to whom we send thee; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of JEHOVAH our God.

Finally, broken and humbled and ready to repent, they say, “Just say the word, O, God.  Say the word.  We are coming to the faithful prophet Jeremiah to go to God for us and whatever He says, we will do!”  You can see how humble and submissive, finally, they appear.  Then it says in Jeremiah 42:7:

And it came to pass after ten days, that the word of JEHOVAH came unto Jeremiah.

Ten days.  You would have to read the whole context, but they were really worried about the Babylonians because their governor had been killed, and they were afraid the Babylonians would come and kill them, and they wanted to flee to Egypt.  But after ten days…and they were probably thinking that the army of Babylon was getting closer and closer to avenge the things that took place there, and they were getting more and more fearful.  You see, God often adds “time” to “testing,” and adding these ten days certainly served to intensify the test to these “faithful Jews.”  But then God told them to stay in the land, which would result in their being taken into captivity, but God said they were not to worry, and He would bless them through this, and they would (eventually) return to the land.  That is the summation of what the Lord said to Jeremiah.  But then they finally showed their “true colors,” and they responded to Jeremiah (after saying that they would obey whatever the Lord told him), “You speak falsely,”  And then a little while later, they spoke in prideful rebellion: “But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth.” 

We will have to pick this up in our next Bible study.