Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #14 of Genesis, chapter 29, and we are going to read Genesis 29:18-20:

And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man: abide with me. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.

We have been spending some time considering Jacob’s marriage to these two daughters of Laban, Rachel and Leah. He married Leah first, and then Rachel, but he loved Rachel, and we are told in this chapter that Leah was hated. So it is another illustration, a historical parable pointing to God’s salvation program, where Jacob is a type of Christ entering into marriage with two types of people. One He loves, and the other He hates.

As we have been discussing, the Lord Jesus is married to the elect through His purchase of us through giving His own life. He shed His blood and gave His life at the point of the foundation of the world, and He purchased His bride, just as Jacob was going to work for His bride. He entered into a contract with Laban who would become his father-in-law. After doing the work, He will enter into marriage.

And it is the same thing with Christ. Christ had to do the work of paying for the sins of His people. He had to satisfy the Law’s demand regarding His bride, consisting of all the elect chosen by Him, and He had to pay for the elect with His life. The act of dying and atoning for sin was work. It was the work of faith, which is why we read in Hebrews 4:3:

For we which have believed do enter into rest…

This is referring to the “rest” of salvation that Christ has purchased for us, which the seventh-day Sabbath typified, because you work for six days and the seventh day you rest. God says in Galatians 2:16 that “…man is not justified by the works of the law,” so He typifies salvation as “rest.” We cannot obtain it with our own work, but we enter into Sabbath “rest,” because another has done the work on our behalf. Again, it says in Hebrews 4:3:

For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

That was the work of Christ performed on behalf of these certain individuals, the chosen people: “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” When did God love Jacob? It was before he had done any good or evil, before he was born. Actually, when we trace it back to all the Bible has to say about this, it leads us right back to “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” That is when Jesus did the work.

We read a passage in James that is often misunderstood. It says in James 2:17-18:

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

You know, the proper understanding of this passage comes down to realizing who the “man” is who is saying this, and once we realize the “man” is the Lord Jesus Christ and He is addressing those who say, “Lord, Lord, I believe. I accepted Christ. I walked the aisle. I made the decision.” (There are a multitude of ways that people think they have become Christians, whether it is being born into a Christian family or being water-baptized, or whatever they think they have done. When the census is taken, and it says, “What religion are you?”, then they check off “Christian.” They say they are Christians. The whole point of what Jesus is saying in this passage is that faith without works is dead because it is alone. This is why we refer to those that are merely “professed Christians,” as there are churches with about two billion professed Christians. Can you imagine that number? Two billion professed Christians! 

You know, God is able to use just a few, just a remnant. We see how He did mighty things in Israel using “lone prophets.” Can you imagine if there were actually two billion genuine men of God that were truly born again? Well, the world would not look like it does today, that is for sure. And we know that because these two billion stayed within the churches and congregations as God brought about the testing ground when He brought forth the doctrine that the church age was over and His people were to “come out” of the churches and not look back. We know that those that remained were tares and, as a result, are the “professed Christians.” The world is full of professed Christians that say, “I have faith.” It is as though Jesus is saying, “You have faith, but I have works.” 

Then it went on to say, “…shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. The work of Christ was to be the spotless Lamb of God, who out of love, mercy and obedience to His Father’s command, took upon Him the form of a servant. He did service. He performed the work of obedience, and He was obedient unto the death of the cross where He became accursed for the sake of His people. This was the work He did when He was struck dead by the Law of God. And, to God be the glory, He rose up from the dead at the foundation of the world in eternity past, declared in rising to be “the firstborn Son of God.” The Son of God! He was given that name or title at that point, upon the completion of that work that was finished from the foundation of the world.

So when we read of Jacob “working” seven years, the number “7” points to perfection, and Christ did the perfect work. He performed the work of perfection on behalf of His people. We can take that idea away from this contract or work agreement that Jacob entered into with Laban. 

We also know from Hosea 12:12 what the nature of that work was, as it says 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.

This was the nature of his work. He served for a wife, and his work was to keep the sheep. We are very familiar with the fact that the whole Bible is a parable. Christ spoke in parables in order to teach the reader of the Bible how to understand the whole of Scripture. He is the Word made flesh, and the Word spoke in parables, and without a parable He did not speak. Obviously, this was in order to instruct the reader how to understand the Word of God, the Bible, of which Jesus is the very embodiment. It is obvious, really, once the Lord has opened up our eyes, and He reveals these things to us. 

Then we see how much of the Bible is clearly written in a parabolic way, like the book of Revelation, the book of Daniel, the Proverbs, Job (“Job continued his parable.”) and Ezekiel (“Doth he not speak in parables?”), and so forth. Then we see that what appear to be a plain, historical books of the Law, like Genesis and Leviticus, are constantly being referred to by God in the New Testament to reveal the deeper spiritual meanings. Remember that Galatians 4 says of Sarah and Hagar that they represented the two covenants, as well as their sons, “which things are an allegory.” There was no clue of that when you read the Old Testament, but once we understand the principle that the whole Bible is a parable, then we can understand. And the definition of a parable is “that which serves to hide truth.” Ultimately, that is the definition, and the whole Bible hides truth: “Verily thou art a God that hideth thyself.” And God has hidden the truth of His Word throughout the Bible, and He uses all kinds of types and figures, like men being likened to fish, or His people being likened to sheep, which is seen in several places. We will just look at a couple of places. It says in Psalm 23:1-4:

JEHOVAH is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

We see the people of God are likened to sheep, and JEHOVAH is said to be our shepherd.

Or, we can turn to Psalm 100:3-4:

Know ye that JEHOVAH he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. God connects His people to being as His sheep and, again, He likens Himself to the role of Shepherd.

It says in Matthew10:6:

But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

It says in Matthew 15:24:

But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

That was God’s salvation program. The Lord Jesus was sent by the Father exclusively unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel, which means exclusively the elect people of God.

Going back to the Psalms, in Psalm 78 we see a reference to the exodus, God’s wonderful deliverance of Israel out of Egypt. It says in Psalm 78:51-52:

And smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham: But made his own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

The deliverance of Israel out of Egypt where they were slaves in the house of bondage was like sheep going forth into the wilderness. And in their wilderness sojourn, God said He guided them like a flock. He was their guide. The Holy Spirit is our guide as we follow the Word of God, the Bible, and the Spirit leads us into truth. And as we learn truth, it directs our path. 

An obvious proof of that would be the information that was sealed up until the time of the end. And at the time of the end, God unsealed His Word and revealed truth. For example, one truth was that the church age was over, and it was time to come out of the corporate church, which was typified as “Sodom and Egypt” in Revelation 11. So God’s people came out of the churches, and we were directed out by the Word of God, the Bible, or we could say, by the Spirit of God, as we compared Scripture with Scripture. Who does the Bible says is teaching when we compare spiritual with spiritual? It says in Corinthians 2 that when we compare spiritual things with spiritual, the Holy Ghost teaches. So the comparison of the Scriptures was done, and the conclusion was reached, which forms the doctrine or teaching, and God’s people followed and obeyed the Spirit’s leading, and we came out of the churches and into the world. And, certainly, this world is a “wilderness.” We came out, not really knowing where we were going. We were just following and obeying God. We knew we could no longer remain in the churches, as the Spirit of God was not there. At that time Satan’s spirit was seated in the temple as the man of sin, showing himself that he was god. God led His people out, and we see this is the nature of a shepherd, as we see in John 10:1-3:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.

That is very important. The sheep hear His voice, and the voice of Christ is distinct above all voice in the world and above all voices you may hear in all other religions. The voice of Christ is above all voice you may hear in the proclamation of “other gospels.” Although those “other gospels” can vary in many ways, they are the same in the sense that they lie. They use some truth, and then they diverge from the truth. They say some things that the Bible teaches, but then they go off course. You see, God has given His people “ears” to hear: “For faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” So once we receive “faith,” who is Christ, through the experience of being born again and receiving a new resurrected soul, we also receive “hearing.” At that point, we can “hear” His voice. It is as though we have been given a receiver that is in tune with a certain “frequency,” and that “frequency” is the voice of Christ, which can then be known as the voice of truth. That is what we read of Jesus, in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The definite article is used there, for the reason that it is only Jesus that is the truth, out of this whole world. It is only the Word of God, the Bible, that is truth, and the teaching of the Spirit of God in regard to His Word, the Bible, that is the truth. 

When the truth is proclaimed faithfully, as God opened an individual’s mouth to proclaim truth, like Mr. Camping, for example, God’s people “hear” it as truth. God used him and revealed to him a great amount of truth that had been previously hidden. At that proper time when we entered this end stage of earth’s history, God took the seals off His Word and opened up Mr. Camping’s eyes, and there it was, a Biblical calendar of history. There was understanding of one doctrine after another, like Sunday the Sabbath, baptism being the washing away of sin, and how we are saved by the faith of Christ and not our own faith. These were things that had confounded the churches and theologians for centuries throughout the entire period of the church age, but they were now coming into focus. Actually, they became so clear, like when we saw, “Oh, yes, it says right here in the Greek, in Matthew 28:1: “At the end of the sabbaths, as it began to dawn toward the first of the sabbaths.” It was the end of the Old Testament seventh-day Sabbath and the beginning of the New Testament Sunday Sabbath. It was crystal clear. Or, there was Galatians 2:16: “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.” And we saw that it was His faith, not ours. And the confusion that had been all over the place in the writings of the church fathers, as they did not quite know how to understand saving faith. But today we see it so plainly and definitely: “Of course, it must be Christ’s faith, because faith is a work.” And God opened up the understanding of this to an individual because that is typically how He does things. He prepares certain individuals and equips them, and He gave Mr. Camping a wide platform like Family Radio, and the truth was proclaimed. As the Word went forth, God saved (certain ones) and gave them ears to hear. And after receiving ears to hear, people come to the truth of the Word of God, following the lead of the Holy Spirit. 

In the case of the end of the church age, the Shepherd led His flock out, and we can see that truth in Ezekiel 34 where the Lord addressed the shepherds of Israel and declared their fault of feeding themselves instead of the flock, and He said that He would cause them to cease in feeding the flock, and then He said that He would feed His flock upon the mountains of Israel, and it was repeated, again and again: “I will feed my flock.” So the Shepherd of Israel declared, “No more under shepherds in the churches and congregations – the church age is over. Come out.” And it would be outside upon “the mountains of Israel,” pointing to the Word of God, the Bible, that the people of God would be fed by Him out in the world during that Latter Rain period: “I will feed them.” And, of course, that is now continuing into the Day of Judgment.

It goes on to say in John 10:4:

And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.

We follow Christ. How do we follow Christ? Christ is the Word of God – we follow the Word. When the Word declares a truth, God’s people follow.

And it is a dangerous and tragic thing when people “close their ears” to truth. They close their ears to a doctrine that is revealed: “Oh, I am not going to listen to that anymore.” We ask, “Are you going to be a Berean, and check it out?” And they respond, “Oh, no, because you were wrong ten years ago, so I do not listen,” and they just go their own way. You see, it is not that they are not following a particular person, but God works by opening the eyes of an individual here or an individual there, as His truth is declared. And it is perfectly fine and legitimate to listen and then say, “Well, I do not hear truth declared there,” and then can call out the person and say, “You said this, but the Bible says that.” But it is not fine to just “stick your finger in your ears” without finding any Biblical error in the thing being taught, but to simply say, “I am not going to listen.” That is not following Christ, because He is Truth. He is the Word, and if truth is being proclaimed from the Word, that is the direction the people of God are to go.