Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #7 of Genesis, chapter 28, and we are going to 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 been discussing this in our last few studies, and we have also talked about a 40-year timeline.  From the time that Jacob left Canaan and went to Haran, until the time he came out of Haran and returned back to the land of Canaan would be 40 years.  And we related that 40 years to the period from 1994 to 2033, as the Bible presents abundant Biblical evidence that 2033 will be the end of the prolonged judgment on the world, and the end of the world itself.

Therefore, this historical situation where Esau has observed that his brother obtained the blessing and observed Jacob’s obedience to his mother and father’s command to go find a wife in Haran relates to the period of time that spans the Great Tribulation from 1994 to 2011 (as the Great Tribulation ended on May 21, 2011) and spans the “second tribulation” of Judgment Day, the recompence of tribulation God planned to repay those who dared put forth their hand against His people during the first tribulation or the Great Tribulation.

So we would expect find some application of Esau witnessing of Jacob getting the blessing and of his obedient action in both judgments: 1) the judgment on the churches during the Great Tribulation; and 2) the tribulation of the world during Judgment Day, the period we are presently living in.  So we would also expect Esau seeing and witnessing certain events taking place, and that is why we went to Ezekiel 12, where God commanded Ezekiel to depart out of the rebellious house “in their sight.”  And they did see it.  We would also expect to see a similar witnessing of the events in Judgment Day which began on May 21, 2011.  So that is what we are going to look at, and we will begin by turning to Matthew 24:29:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

The Lord has opened up information from the Biblical calendar that has allowed us to map out the church age, which ended on May 21, 1988, and then the 23-year Great Tribulation period, which came to an end on May 21, 2011.  Therefore, we know that “immediately after the  tribulation,” May 21, 2011, is when that Tribulation ended.  Then it goes on to say in Matthew 24:30:

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

So the unsaved people of the world will see the Son of man in heaven coming with power and great glory, just as Esau saw these things unfold concerning the blessing being given to his twin brother Jacob, and so forth.  Again, we have already gone through this period of history, as May 21, 2011 was years ago.  And the report from the world and the report from the churches was that “nothing happened.”  They did not “see” anything.  That is what they testified.  It was just another typical day, and that is why there was mockery and ridicule – it was obvious to anyone that has eyes in their head. 

But this is the Bible.  In the Bible, God lays out spiritual truths and spiritual judgments, and He has done that throughout history.  And the thing about spiritual things is that they are invisible.  For example, God is Spirit.  Can you see God with your physical eyes?  No – nobody can see God.  Nobody can describe what He looks like because they cannot see Him.  Does the fact that you cannot see Him mean that He does not exist?  Obviously not.  We believe that God is real.  He truly exists.  He is this glorious, Almighty Being that the Bible tells us about.  We believe and, yet, we believe in something we cannot see.  The Bible tells us in Hebrews 11:1:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Actually, when we allow the Bible to define its own terms, “faith” is like spiritual sight.  That is, we “see” with eyes of faith those things that exist in the spiritual realm.  In the same chapter of Hebrews, it says in Hebrews 11:24-27:

By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.

How can you see someone that is invisible?  The way in which he saw Him was stated in the first part of the verse.  It was “by faith,” and you can carry it through that statement, “By faith…seeing him who is invisible.”  Faith is a belief and a trust and, of course, it is Christ.  But when Christ saves us through His faith, we are granted the Holy Spirit which produces the fruit of faith.  So we have faith, and we can “see” spiritually.  We can see spiritual realities, and we know they are true and do exist. 

You know, this may be what some that do not have faith…and the Bible does say, “All men have not faith.”  That is how we all start.  None of us had Christ.  None of us were saved.  All of us were dead to spiritual realities.  We were dead in trespasses and sins, although we were alive physically.  We have a physical mind and inner thoughts, but as far as our souls were concerned, we were dead in spirit, the invisible part of us, like any corpse in a cemetery.  And it was only when God gave us a new life and a new “heart” that we came to life in our soul existence, and now we have citizenship in the kingdom of heaven, which is a spiritual kingdom. 

Additionally, we can hear spiritual things.  We hear Christ’s voice.  We can see with eyes of faith spiritual truths.  Maybe we were someone that as we were brought up in this world and as we went to school, we had teachers telling us about evolution and the “Big Bang,” and how we are all descendants of apes.  They worked overtime trying to convince their students that this was reality and truth, and it was the history of “beginnings,” and where human beings originated.  That person got all that instruction, but then God saved that person, and that person read Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”  And they know that is true – that is how it happened.  It is understanding.

In Hebrews 11, after saying, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” it goes on to say in Hebrews 11:3:

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

By faith, we believe the Bible.  We trust the Bible.  We know it is true.  We know God is this Spirit Being who dwells and reigns in a spiritual kingdom, and He has a Word that is so powerful that He can speak and cause things to “appear” which had no physical substance of any kind.  They appear from “that which does not appear,” or from God, who is invisible.  And that is how it is with the child of God.  We “see” when we realize the truth as God, by His grace, opens up our eyes of understanding.  Then we see.

And, yet, the natural man can hear that same information, and he can then be taught the Bible, just as the elect individual.  So he hears on one level with his physical ears, and he can see the words that are written with his physical eyes, but as Jesus pointed out in Matthew 13:13: “…they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.”  They are not able because they lack the living soul; they are dead to spiritual things.  Therefore, they cannot comprehend and, of course, that has everything to do with why the elect children of God understand right doctrine.  And the non-elect that are dead in the spirit do not understand.  That is why they are so easily fooled and deceived, and so many will follow “tongues” and “falling over backwards,” and that is why so many go after the doctrine of “free will salvation.”  They would say, “What do you mean that the Bible does not teach that we can believe and become saved?  It says it right there: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.’”  You see, they cannot truly perceive God’s voice.  God writes the Bible on several levels, and when people just take the surface meaning of the Scriptures – like Fool’s Gold – and they think they have something, but it will actually lead them astray and bring them to ruin. 

But God’s people hear His voice,  and we compare spiritual with spiritual, and the Holy Ghost teaches.  We have to be very, very careful when reading the Bible.  It is full of pit falls, snares and traps, and we need the Holy Spirit as our guide to lead us, step by step, through all these things to the truth, the buried treasure.  But God’s people “see.”

So we might think when we read in Matthew 24:30 that “they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory,” it is referring to the elect.  But, no.  We are helped in understanding this by a passage in Matthew 26 that has to do with the high priest of Israel who was not a saved man.  He turned the Lord over to be crucified.  Obviously, he was not a truly saved individual to betray the Lord in that manner, where he was actively working to destroy the Lord’s Christ.  So we read in Matthew 26:61-65:

And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days. And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee? But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.

Jesus said, “hereafter,” which means “from now.”  It was not something that was way off in the future.  Some theologians have said in their commentaries that this has to do with the end of time, but it is not referring to Judgment Day.  By the use of the word “hereafter,” it is something that was going to happen immediately: “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”  You know, we must “scratch our heads.”  You can see why the theologians would try to link that to the time of the end, but Jesus was speaking to the high priest, and he said, “You are going to see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds.”  And this is very similar to what it says in the second part of the verse in Matthew 24:30: “…and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”

Because the high priest was unsaved, that helps us to understand those that are going to “see” the Lord coming immediately after the Tribulation in this way are also the unsaved; or, at least, it would include the unsaved.  So what does it mean that the high priest would “see” Christ sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven?  We must realize that “clouds of heaven” are also a spiritual reference; that is, it is a figure of speech that points to the Bible or the Word of God.  Read Numbers 9, which is a chapter that details the movements of the children of Israel in the wilderness.  When did they move?  Remember God came to them in a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day, and the cloud would rest over the tabernacle where there was the ark of the covenant.  And when the cloud moved, then the people would journey.  And when the cloud came to a rest, they would set up the tabernacle and their tents, and the people would stop their journey.  Let us read Numbers 9:20:

And so it was, when the cloud was a few days upon the tabernacle; according to the commandment of JEHOVAH they abode in their tents, and according to the commandment of JEHOVAH they journeyed.

The commandment was illustrated with the movement of the cloud, so the cloud identifies with the commandment of the Lord.  And, of course, God’s commandments are found in the Bible.  It is His Word.  It is a synonym for the Word of God, the Bible.

So when it was said to the high priest of Israel, “…ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven,” He was saying that the high priest would hear reports from the Word of God.  And, of course, the Bible was still being added to (at that time), like the Epistles, and these reports of the resurrection would soon come his way.  And that would relate to “sitting on the right hand of power,” and that Christ was not dead, but living, and, therefore, He was who He claimed to be, God in the flesh.  So, certainly, He is at the right hand of power as God.  This continual hearing of the reports of the Scriptures over the course of time is what the Lord Jesus had in mind when He said this to the high priest.

Likewise, as it says in Matthew 24, “Immediately after the tribulation… then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven.”  It is not the physical coming of the Son of man, but the “sign,” which is the darkened sun, moon and stars, which are also figures of the Gospel, and so forth.  And these signs will be declared because they will “see” the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory – not physically.  But what have the elect people of God been saying since immediately after May 21, 2011?  Remember when the news media of the whole world was gathered together when Mr. Camping was doing the first Open Forum after that date had passed.  He said, “It is Judgment Day.  There is no more salvation.  We are not going to evangelize any longer.”  He began going in that direction, and then there were just a few days in which the Lord was opening up things before Mr. Camping’s stroke.  Since that time…even back then, after Mr. Camping’s stroke, Family Radio asked me to do the Bible study series, the Bible studies that only Mr. Camping had done for many, many years.  They asked me to fill in, and I did.  I think it was from July to early October, as we were looking for that day that was a literal five months (from May 21, 2011).  Back then, Family Radio had a much larger audience than they do now, but I was saying that it was Judgment Day, and there was no more salvation.  And EBible Fellowship has continued to teach these things in all of our declarations, tracts and in the tract trips we have taken.  Even with October 7, 2015, when I thought that might be the end, I was interviewed by stations, and we have been giving a consistent message that Christ has come as Judge, and it is a “continual coming” in judgment.  They are hearing the same message, again, and again. 

Just pay attention to some of these others out there.  They act like they do not notice us.  They do not want to notice us – that is for sure.  They do not want to notice us because of what the Bible teaches regarding the “shut door.”  But they are continually trying to convince “their group,” those that have gone back to the churches or to former doctrines, even though they had been familiar with these things.  They are continually trying to convince the people that turned back to Egypt with them that the door is still open, and God is still saving.  If it is so insignificant, why do they keep bringing it up?  It is because it is troubling them, just as it says in Luke 21 in the parallel passage.  They are hearing the reports.  They are “seeing” the Son of man coming in the Scriptures, as it is being taught from the Word of God, as God opens the eyes of His people, and we share these things and they are “seeing.”  Of course, they are seeing, without seeing, and hearing without hearing, in that sense.  Only God’s elect have spiritual sight and spiritual ears.

But this is the situation that is happening at this time.  And as Esau “sees” the circumstances, then he willfully disobeyed and willfully sinned.  It is willful sin at this point, for all those that have turned back from the gracious teaching and doctrine that the Lord has opened up to His people at the time of the end.