Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #21 of Genesis, chapter 28, and we will read Genesis 28:14-15:

And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

We see that verse 14 is a continuation of the blessing to the seed, as God had said in the previous verse: “The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed.”   And we know the “seed” is Christ, in the first instance, and all the elect that are in Christ that are counted for the seed, the heirs of the promise of the land.  The land of Canaan is a type and figure of the new heaven and new earth.  That is why the Bible speaks of the meek inheriting the earth.  The “meek” are also God’s elect, and the earth is our inheritance because of God’s promise.

Then it says in verse 14, “And they seed shall be as the dust of the earth,” and this is also familiar to us.  We know God uses the figure of being multiplied as the stars of heaven or as the dust of the earth.  And, of course, it is a great quantity in both of those figures, so that it cannot be counted, and we know that at the time of the end, God speaks of a great multitude that no man can number.  And that is the idea.  Man does not number the great multitude, but God does.  There are a limited number of people that Christ died for, and it could well be as many as two hundred million.

But, here, Jacob is told (and we are also told, because God has written it to us), “And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south.”  Here, we see the number “4,” pointing to universality and a worldwide promise – it is a promise to all of God’s seed throughout all the word and throughout all time. 

Then it says, “and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”  And, here, it appears that Jacob is being used as a figure of Christ.  We know it originates with Jesus, and then for all those that are counted for the seed, as Galatians 29 tells us.  Through Christ and through His elect people the Gospel went forth into all the world, and “in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”  This is how God brought the news of salvation that brought the ultimate blessing of life for evermore for those chosen to receive it, God’s elect people.

Continuing on, it says in Genesis 28:15:

And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

This is a very encouraging Bible verse.  First, God is saying this to Jacob, and we should see ourselves as also being addressed: “I am with thee.”  God is with His people.  And, it says, “…and I will keep thee in all places wither thou goest.”  And Jacob had left his mother and his father and the only land he had ever known, the land of Canaan – the land he had been told he would inherit.  And he was going to a strange land and, yet, God says, “I will keep you in the place where you are going, and I will bring you again into this land.  So do not forget this promise because I have not forgotten.  I remember it, and no matter how long you are away, I will bring you back again.”  Then there is the wonderful declaration, “…for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.”  I thought it would be good for us (I know it would be good for me) to look at the word that is found here, where God says, “I will not leave thee.”  He will not leave us nor forsake us.  This word translated as “leave” is more often translated as “forsake.”  It is Strong’s #5800, and it is translated as “leave” 72 times, and as “forsake” 129 times.   That is how we will find it translated in several places.  For example, let us turn to Joshua 1:5-9:

There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for JEHOVAH thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

That is the same language that the Lord spoke to Jacob.  In Joshua 1:5, Joshua was told, “so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”  Then God told him, “for JEHOVAH thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”  This was just as he told Jacob when he was leaving Canaan and going to a place he had never been before.

And this is true for us today.  God is with us, and He will help us withersoever we go and wherever we may find ourselves right now.  We could be in any nation of the world, or in any city or town, and it does not matter.  God is omnipresent – He is everywhere.  And He is with His people, whether it be a little child who is one of His elect or whether it be an old man or old woman, and everyone in between.  God is with His people, and God will help His people.

It is significant that when God said that He would be with Joshua, He also said, “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”  And the Hebrew word “fail” is a word that is translated as “forsake” in Deuteronomy 4:30-31:

When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to JEHOVAH thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice; (For JEHOVAH thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.

JEHOVAH is a merciful God.  He will not forsake thee or fail thee.  And this word “fail” is translated as “let alone,” in Deuteronomy 9:14:

Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven…

Our interest is in the translation of this Hebrew word for “fail.”  Bringing the understanding of being “let alone” back to the verse we read in Joshua 1, it would read, “I will not fail thee, nor let thee alone.”  In other words, “I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee.”  If we were left alone, what trouble we would be in!  The people of the world have been “let alone.”  They have been left to their own devices, their own wisdom and their own understanding, and look at what is going on in their blindness and tremendous ignorance of even basic morality.  They have no way of discerning right from wrong or good from evil.  They really cannot tell.  For them, it is a good thing to take a baby that has been eight or nine months in the womb and allow the mother to kill the child: “Oh, it is a woman’s right.”  We can only pity and feel sorry for anyone who cannot see the terrible evil involved with that.  Or, now, in this world there are men who do not think they are men, and there are women who do not think they are women, and there are parents that want to leave it up to their children to determine whether they are male or female: “We do not want to impress upon them and make that decision for them.”  They have no understanding that God was the One who made that decision when He formed that child in the womb as either male or female.  Already, the gender is fixed.  And, yet, we live at the time of the end of the world, and God has forsaken the world, just as He had forsaken the churches when judgment was upon them and they lost sight due to spiritual blindness of the right doctrines in the Bible, because that was the area in which they were entrusted with the Bible.  So that was the area of their blindness, so they taught crazy and insane things, and everything under the sun that was not the truth of the Word of God, the Bible.

But the world was not entrusted with the Bible, so we do not see the judgment of God in the area of doctrine and details of the Bible’s teaching, but we see it in area of the Law written upon their hearts.  We see them turning from marriage between a man and a woman, and even failing to understand what a man and a woman are, and just so many other things. 

And, yet, God has not forsaken His people.  He has not left us to ourselves.  That would be our ruin.  But He is with us, and He is still a light within us, in our hearts and in our minds, like a light in our “dwelling” and a light before us to lighten the path we have to follow, and that path is laid out on the pages of the Bible.  The Bible reveals the “way” to go, and that is the way we follow.  Of course, the way that we follow will be ridiculed, reviled and spoken evil of by all those in the churches.  What would we expect?  They are in darkness.  They have been left in darkness and to their own understanding.  They have their own reasoning, and they do not lean up the Lord and trust in the Lord.

Likewise, of course, the world will revile and speak evil of the elect who still follow the things of the Bible, as though we are crazy and out of our minds.  But who are they to speak?  How can anyone give any credence whatsoever to the thoughts and the mindset of the people of the world at this time?  You see, God has allowed the insanity and madness of their hearts to come to the surface so that all can see.  They have never had any proper sense of reason and wisdom – the wisdom of man is no wisdom at all.  So it is a help to God’s elect people when the world and the churches point their “bony finger” at us, and they mock and ridicule. 

I mean, maybe in times past it was a little difficult when the world still had some sense of morality and the churches had some understanding of true doctrine, but now it is not difficult (for us) at all.  To use an expression, “It is water off a duck’s back.”  Really and truly, it does not phase God’s elect people, or it should not phase us in the least.  We understand that they have “zero” ability to discern good, right and just things.  They have absolutely no Biblical perception.  They would not know the truth if it was standing before them, just as Christ stood before the leaders of Israel and they did not know that He was the truth, God in the flesh.  And that is how the churches are today.  They do not have any sense of the truth.

But God has forsaken the world, and God has forsaken the churches, and judgment involves being “forsaken.”  That is what Jesus called out on the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  In judgment, God forsakes the sinner.  Christ was demonstrating on the cross that He had bore the sins of His people at the foundation of the world – He was forsaken by God and slain by the Law of God, dying and making payment for sin at the foundation of the world.  But He had to make that manifest and show it forth, so He demonstrated that by having God the Father “forsake” Him in a like way, which showed us that the judgment of God toward the sinner is to forsake and leave the one that is under God’s wrath.  For example, we see this when Christ comes as the Judge, in 2Thessalonians 1:7-9:

And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

They are separated from God.  They are removed from the presence of the living God.  God continues to live forever and ever, but (unsaved) man is destroyed in death and removed from the presence of God.  He is forsaken by God and left in a dead state for evermore.  This is what the judgment of God does to the wicked.   We read in Psalm 9…and Psalm 9 is a very instructive Psalm that teaches us some important truths related to Judgment Day, and we see there is much that has to do with judgment.  For example, it says in Psalm 9:4:

For thou hast maintained my right and my cause; thou satest in the throne judging right.

It says in Psalm 9:7-10:

But JEHOVAH shall endure for ever: he hath prepared his throne for judgment. And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness. JEHOVAH also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, JEHOVAH, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.

Here, God is speaking to His people, His elect children.  He is judging the world.  That is the language found here, and God is judging the world and ministering judgment to the people in uprightness.  It is, indeed, a righteous judgment, and the Bible has been revealing the “revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”  God’s judgment is righteous.  It is according to His Law, and all are before Him – the wicked and the righteous.  The elect must also appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and that is where we are presently.  We have been left on the earth to go through the entire prolonged Judgment Day until that last day.  Then on the last day, there will be the completion of the judgment and the pronouncement upon God’s elect, “I find no fault in them,” and all the elect will be taken up.

But in the meantime, “JEHOVAH also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble,” and the elect people of God will put our trust in Him.  And we do that by trusting in His Word.  Then there is that final declaration in Psalm 9:10: “…for thou, JEHOVAH, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.”  God may forsake us in the sense that He is trying us and testing us, but He will not – and cannot – forsake His people by leaving us.  His Spirit is within the ones He has saved, and once His Spirit enters into us, He will never depart.  He will never leave the one that has been truly born again.  So He is our confidence.  He is our strength.  He is the One who encourages our souls and keeps us company in a world that has turned from us, along with the churches that have separated from us.  You know, the world and the churches may reach right into our very homes, and we may feel isolated.  We may feel alone and lonely and be desirous of needing someone to be with us and to support us, and to help us and speak to us in the dark, lonely night.  The answer to all those needs is God Himself.  It is the Word of God.  He will not leave us nor forsake us and, of course, He is the most important One. 

If all the world were with us and if all the world would suddenly show support for us and offer us companionship, and if we had people around us 24/7…whatever we needed… it would still be an empty and vain thing, hardly worth anything at all, although it could certainly occupy our time until we died or until the last day.

But, on the other hand, to have God’s help and to have the Lord with us – the Lord who sticks closer than a brother – and comforting us within our soul and comforting the soul that may be cast down, persecuted, afflicted and troubled on every side.  And God remains.  God stays.  God will not leave us in death, as our loved ones may do.  God will not leave us in anger, as others may do.  He will not leave us nor forsake us for any reason whatsoever, even as we get older, sicker and poorer, and our “flower fades” in this world.  The world speaks well of you when your “flower” is in bloom and you are strong, rich and attractive.  But as your “flower” fades and you lose the things the world favors, you will notice that more and more people will leave you, because that is the nature of this world.  But God does not leave us, whether we be young or old.  That is actually what He tells us in Psalm 37:24-25:

Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for JEHOVAH upholdeth him with his hand. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

The righteous are not forsaken by God, and God will feed us.  That is why He has commanded, “Feed my sheep.”  He has that concern and love and care for those that are His.