Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #18 of Genesis, chapter 29, and we are going to read Genesis 29:27-30:

Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also. And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid. And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.

We have been looking at these two seven-year periods, or 14 years. In our last study, we saw that later on in the book of Genesis, Pharaoh would have two dreams, and Joseph was called out of prison to interpret the dreams. The dreams would indicate there would be seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine.

Let us read just a portion of Genesis 41, as I almost read the entire chapter last time, but this time I will read Genesis 41:25-32:

And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do. The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one. And the seven thin and ill favoured kine that came up after them are seven years; and the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind shall be seven years of famine. This is the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh: What God is about to do he sheweth unto Pharaoh. Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; And the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of that famine following; for it shall be very grievous. And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice; it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.

Here, Joseph had been called and, once again, the Lord has given him wisdom. And Joseph admitted and recognized this, as it says in Genesis 41:15-16:

… I have heard say of thee, that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it. And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.

It was an excellent response because it is true. Sometimes we can look at a man the Lord has blessed with wisdom and understanding, and he seems to have a lot of Biblical knowledge. We can think, “Wow! This person is really blessed of God.” And, yet, the truth is the wisdom is not in them – not a bit. There is nothing in them of themselves. That is why a verse in Acts 1 is so important in the Greek, but I will read it as it was translated, beginning in Acts 1:6:

When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

Note that they said, “at this time.” It was a time-related question. Then it says in Acts 1:7:

And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.

People read that in the English of the King James Bible, and they say, “See. Time is none of your business. Get your nose out of God’s end time program, and do not try to understand (times or seasons.) This statement, along with the verse, ‘No man knows the day or hour,’ is clear enough. It is not for you to know the times or seasons, which the Father has put in His own power.” But when we look at the original Greek, we see that the word translated as “for you” is actually a genitive case, and it would be properly translated to read: “It is not of you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.” Then read the next verse, in Acts 1:8:

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

He said, “It is not of you to know the times and seasons. It is in the Father’s power, but you will receive power.” Remember what the Lord said in John 16 regarding the Holy Spirit. He will guide you into all truth. The word was sealed up until the time of the end, and no man can know the mysteries and hidden things of God. No man could know the things God had planned for the end stage of earth’s history because the Bible was sealed. The Bible was a sealed book and it could have been given to a learned individual and he would say, “I cannot read it. It is sealed up.” It was only at the point that God would remove the seals that certain things could be understood, and that is the implication in Daniel 12:4: “O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end…and knowledge shall be increased.” It is a very clear implication that at the time of the end the seals would be taken off, and at that point, understanding and knowledge of the Word of God would increase.

You see, it was not “of us” at the time of the end, but we received power after the Holy Ghost had come upon us. The second outpouring of the Holy Spirit took place in 1994, a Jubilee Year, and it was not only to save the great multitude during the season of the Latter Rain, but it was also sent to open up the eyes of the people of God to the mysteries that were being revealed as doctrines were coming forth (from the Bible). It is all a result of the Holy Spirit’s activity as God’s people compare spiritual with spiritual, and the Holy Ghost teaches. And He has been teaching, and in teaching us, He has been guiding us into all the truths of the Word of God that God has determined to reveal before this world ends. So He measured out a certain quota or amount of truth, we could say, and He has been meting it out over the course of history, and for the time of the end He saved the best until last, to the point that it is almost as though there is a “new covenant.” And He is continuing to reveal things into the Day of Judgment.

So Joseph was saying the same thing thousands of years ago: “It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.” Then the Lord opened up Joseph’s understanding to what is really a parable. The dream given to Pharaoh was divine revelation, as Pharaoh was speaking it. It was inspired by God, as we can know because it is included in the Bible. And God gave Joseph understanding.

And notice the references to the number “7.” There were seven kine that were fat-fleshed and seven kine that were ill-favored. There were seven good ears of corn and seven awful ears of corn. They represent “seven years.” God gave Joseph that information, but that information is exactly in keeping with the Biblical methodology that we have learned as we study the Bible: Christ spoke in parables, and without a parable He did not speak. So we are not shocked or surprised that God is saying that these seven kine represent seven years – seven good years and then seven bad years. Nor are we shocked or surprised at the seven ears of corn. Here, God is the one who is assigning meaning, and He is connecting various types and figures with “time” references. And Joseph was able to interpret. There would be seven years of plenty, represented by the good kine and the good ears of corn, and seven years of famine, represented by the thin kine and the bad ears of corn. And the “dream is one,” so both the kine and the corn are spiritually representing the same thing: seven years of bounty, followed by seven years of famine that would destroy the bounty to the point where it would not even be remembered that the years of plenty had existed.

What do these seven years followed by other seven years represent. We are helped because in the New Testament God refers to these years of famine in Acts 7:11-12:

Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Chanaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance. But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first.

There came a dearth over all the land of Egypt. That would be the famine that Joseph was telling Pharaoh, which his dream foretold. 

And then it says, “and great affliction.” And we need to look at this in the Greek. 

By the way, this is why we always need to check out what we read in our own language, whether it be English or Spanish or Chinese. You know, the Bible is a translation into the various languages of people, and it has been translated into dozens and dozens of languages. But every language translation is a translation from the Old Testament Hebrew or the New Testament Greek, and the translators may have used different words or maybe even mistranslated a word, so it is always important to check it out and to use an interlinear Bible to see the Greek word. Jay Green’s Interlinear is keyed to Strong’s Concordance, and you can see the original Greek word with its Strong’s number and the English translation of the word, and you can check out where else the word is found.

And when we check out “great tribulation” in the Greek, it is “megas-thlipsis,” and these two words combined are translated as “great tribulation” in Matthew 24, Revelation 2, and Revelation 7. (I may have remembered them all.) These are the places these two words together are translated as “great tribulation,” but here it is translated as “great affliction.” So we have Biblical authority to translated it as “great tribulation,” so God is making a connection between the famine of Joseph’s day and the Great Tribulation that came at the end of the world when judgment began at the house of God. The phrase “great tribulation” is actually a synonym for God’s judgment on the churches, so the 23-year (actual) period from May 21, 1988 through May 21, 2011 was the Great Tribulation period, and it was typified by “seven years” of famine in the time of Joseph.

Also, this helps us with the “years of plenty,” because we know the seven years of famine is a type and figure of “great tribulation,” and we also know that the Great Tribulation took place simultaneously with the end of the church age. May 21, 1988 was the end of the church age, and it was immediately after that date that there was “great tribulation” and spiritual famine came upon all the world’s churches and congregations, and they instantaneously became “desolate,” and they became a place where was “a famine of hearing the words of JEHOVAH.” A spiritual famine is a famine of hearing the words of God, according to Amos 8:11. We know a physical famine is a famine of bread and water, but a spiritual famine is not of bread and water, but a famine of “hearing,” where the person listening to the Word of God, the Bible, cannot “hear,” even if the Word is faithfully taught. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, but it requires the Holy Spirit to open the spiritual ears so the individual might become born again. And that is what it means to “hear,” because faith comes by hearing, and that faith is the faith of Christ. 

In the day of salvation within the perimeters of the church age, from 33 A.D. to 1998 A. D., people could go to church and hear the Bible read or hear the preacher preaching from a Bible verse, and, potentially, they could have received the blessing of the “early rain” that was falling over the course of the church age. They could have become saved and been numbered in the figure of the firstfruits, the figurative 144,000 unto God. 

But once the church age ended, immediately, the Holy Spirit departed out of the midst. That is what is in view when we read in the book of Daniel that the “daily” was taken away, and the abomination of desolation was set up. It was a transaction wherein God’s Spirit departed out of the midst, and Satan’s evil spirit, which had been loosed, entered in and he set himself up there to rule as the man of sin. This was the moment that the two witnesses (the Law and the Prophets that typify the witness of the Bible within the churches) were lying dead in the streets. What good is the Bible without the Holy Spirit present to bless it to the ears of the congregations? And this was the terrible judgment that God brought upon the churches when He came to “visit” them, after giving them space to repent of almost 2,000 years. God finally came to visit, as it were, to see if they had repented of their high places. The answer was, “No.” They were built into their confessions and creeds and proclaimed by church, after church, after church, so God judged the entire institution of the corporate body, and He departed out.

Again, immediately upon His departure, the “faithful city” became a harlot, as we read in Isaiah 1. She became unfaithful. She became a place of “murderers and thieves,” and “a den of thieves,” at that point. This was the judgment of God, the Great Tribulation, and there was also the terrible famine of hearing, which the famine of Joseph’s day typified.

We also know that the famine of Joseph’s day is amazingly accurate as it pertains to the breakdown of the actual Great Tribulation. The difference is that the famine was only seven actual years, but we find that when the famine began, the first two years found Jacob and his family still in the land of Canaan. Then Joseph revealed himself to his brethren. We were already in the Great Tribulation and we, the people of God, were still located within the churches, just as Jacob and his family were located in the land of Canaan, the outward representation of God’s kingdom. Then Christ revealed Himself through His Word and we came out of the churches, just as Jacob and his family were brought out of Canaan to go where Joseph was in Egypt, which typifies the world. So there are remarkable similarities between the historical seven-year famine and the spiritual 23-year Great Tribulation period. 

We are very secure in understanding that the second seven-year period is the Great Tribulation and, knowing that the Great Tribulation immediately follows the church age, it helps us to see that the first seven-year period of “plenty” would typify the 1,955 years of the church age, from 33 A. D. when the Holy Spirit was first poured out until the year 1988. There was great plenty in the sense of the expansion of the Word of God. Before the church age, for the most part, the Word of God would have been confined to the land of Israel and neighboring nations would have been familiar (to some degree) with the God of Israel. Yes – there was a long history there, but there was a “big world” out there in Europe, Africa, Pacific Islands or North and South America. It was over the course of the church age that the churches grew and expanded, and as the churches expanded, the presence of the Word of God in the world grew and expanded.

If you have a crop in your field, and it grow and expands, you have plenty. And this is what took place over the church age. Yes – there were churches with Bibles in their pulpits before the printing press. But after the printing press was developed, the Bible started getting out into the hands of common people, and it was the churches that were bringing the Word of God and translating portions of the Word of God in literature, and there were all kinds of books and tracts being sent all over the earth for the first time during the church age.

So that first seven-year period of time is typified by a span of time that was almost 2,000 years in which there was a time of “plenty.” Once the church age ended, there began seven years of famine. So we can see how the church age, followed by the Great Tribulation period is in view with these two seven-year periods of time which total 14 years. 

And we also know that at the end of the Great Tribulation (as typified by the end of the second seven-year period), everyone that was to be saved was saved – everyone who was predestinated and whose name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. That means the “bride of Christ” was officially found and added to the body of Christ, and the bride was made ready for the marriage. So at the end of the 14 years, we have all those saved in the churches and congregations, the firstfruits as represented by the 144,000 in the book of Revelation; and then over the course of the second part of the Great Tribulation, all those of the great multitude that no man could number were saved. From what we can read in the Bible, there were scores of millions of people, and now the “bride” is complete, just as Jacob officially had his bride (Rachel, the one he loved), once he finished that second seven-year period of time in the contract he had entered into with Laban.

That is all we are going to have time for in this study. Lord willing, when we get together in our next study, we are going to move on and look at the last section of this chapter where we read that Leah was hated. Then JEHOVAH, seeing she was hated, opened up her womb, and she had son, after son, after son. We wonder, “What is that all about?” And Leah had Rueben, her firstborn, and also Jacob’s firstborn son. Why do we not hear more about Rueben in Biblical history? It seems he is brought up a few times, but we do not hear what we might expect to hear. Actually, we will see a very familiar pattern coming into play once more when we look at Rueben, and the reason he did not receive the blessing of the firstborn son.