Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #33 of Genesis 31, and we will read Genesis 31:52-55:

This heap be witness, and this pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm. The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us. And Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac. Then Jacob offered sacrifice upon the mount, and called his brethren to eat bread: and they did eat bread, and tarried all night in the mount. And early in the morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them: and Laban departed, and returned unto his place.

Once again, we are trying to understand this to see, if by God’s grace, He will grant us further understanding to see the truth of this account on a spiritual level.

There may be one thing that some of you are wondering about (and I understand why) is that the last verse says, “Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters…”  That does not sound like Satan, does it?  It sounds pretty far removed from the devil.  He is expressing kindness and love, and he is kissing his sons and daughters.  But remember that Judas sought to betray Jesus with a kiss while Satan dwelt within him, and in that sense, Satan was kissing the Lord Jesus Christ.  So we should not think that this is something alien to Satan that he would have nothing to do with, and we can read in the Gospel accounts that Satan is a deceiver, and he will come with a kiss if it would serve his purposes.

Getting back to our verse, it says in Genesis 31:52:

This heap be witness, and this pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm.

We went from here to the parable found in Luke 16 regarding the rich man and Lazarus the beggar.  We saw that both had died.  It says of the rich man, in Luke 16:23-26:

And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Again, we were looking at the word “pass” in verse 26:

… so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot…

The word “would” expresses a desire, and it is the desire of God’s people to bring a Gospel of salvation, and we certainly delighted in that work in its proper time and season within the boundaries of the “day of salvation,” and we carried that Gospel message wherein God would use His Word to save His elect people.  It was a pleasure and a delight and a joy!  And we “would” that everyone might be saved, but we know that not everyone can be saved.  God has saved the few out of the whole of mankind, who are called His elect.  We understand that, but still it was our desire when God was still saving that every person who received a tract from us or that we were able to witness to in whatever way might have been saved.  But again, we recognized and understood that very few of them would be saved, and so too, now.  We do not wish harm on anyone.  We do not wish destruction on anyone.  The unsaved of the world are not all “strangers” to us.  We know some well.  We care about some.  We love some, and we would certainly want the very best for them.  And, actually, we want the best for every human being.  We desire the best possible thing for them, and that would be salvation.  But it is not possible in the Day of Judgment, where we find ourselves currently.

So that is what is being said here by “Father Abraham,” or by God Himself because Abraham is typifying God as he said, “And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed.”  We looked at a couple of verses using this word “fixed,” and it means it is “established,” and it is “steadfast.”  It cannot be moved.  It cannot be changed.  It is according to the Word of God, the commandment of God, that this great gulf be in place to bring about separation – final and eternal – between those that Lazarus typifies, the saved, and those that the rich man typifies, the unsaved. 

There is not one person in the dark kingdom of Satan whom God will come to find and to translate into the kingdom of light.  And that did happen over the course of history, and it happened in a great way during the second part of the Great Tribulation in the Latter Rain period, but now the rain has ceased to fall.  The time for salvation has passed, and God warned of this, again, and again, and again, for century after century, and for millennium after millennium.  God warned this day would come.  It is the language of the book of Zephaniah that has been there for 2,500+ years.  It says in Zephaniah 2:1-3:

Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired; Before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the JEHOVAH come upon you, before the day of the JEHOVAH'S anger come upon you. Seek ye the JEHOVAH, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the JEHOVAH'S anger.

Before, before, before the day comes!  So nobody can charge God with injustice and unrighteousness, or of not being fair.  Nobody can say that God has done wrong in doing what He said He would do.  And He saved the ones that He obligated Himself to save, and He accomplished that salvation.  He never promised anyone or gave a wrong idea that He would save everyone, nor has He said He would always save, even after He has saved all His people, and that the “day of salvation” would continue.  He never said that, but Christ said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel,”  spiritual Israel comprised of those chosen before the foundation of the world and predestinated to obtain salvation.  These are the spiritual Jews that would become circumcised in heart when they became saved.  They were the ones Christ came for, and they were the ones Christ sent forth the Spirit to find, and they were also the ones that the people of God were moved by the Spirit of God to go into all the world, teaching all nations, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And we went forth carrying that Word until God found the last lost sheep of the house of Israel and saved him or her, and then the Great Commission immediately came to an end.  It ceased.   We were to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all nations.  That is what the Bible says, and let me read that to make sure I quote it right.  It says in Matthew 28:19-20:

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

We were to go into all nations, baptizing them, and teaching them, and the “nations” in view are not political nations like China, Russia or Indonesia, but it is the “nations” of God’s elect, according to Revelation 21, in the context of the New Jerusalem that are only made up of all those Christ would save.  It says in Revelation 21:24:

And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it…

It is the “nations of them.”  We were to teach all “nations,” baptizing them, and teaching them, the “nations of them which are saved.”  You see, those are the nations that we were commanded to go forth and teach and baptize.  It was specifically designed for them, not for the political or physical nations of this world.  Of course it was necessary for the people of God to go to the physical nations, like China, India, Bolivia, or Spain, in order to find the “nations of them which are saved.”  But the distinction can best be seen once this task was finished.  The worldwide proclamation of May 21, 2011 (as Judgment Day) went forth to all the physical, political nations of the world, and the Word of God, the Gospel, went forth far and wide.  And God blessed the hearing of it to the hearts of each one He intended to save.  He saved the best until last, and that great multitude was saved out of the short season of the Great Tribulation until, finally, the last person heard as God opened his or her ears to become saved.  And immediately, the Gospel was quenched.  It was shut off.  That was it.

And of course it worked out perfectly according to God’s timetable of “times and seasons” because God is God, and He is able to arrange these things in perfect order.  And when that last person was saved in the proper time and season, May 21, 2011 came, ending the Great Tribulation and ending the Latter Rain.  Judgment Day began on that day, and the door was shut.  Everything was precise, just as we see in God’s creation.  He is a God of precision, exactness, and perfect order.  So He arranged it that way, and He shut the door.  Now no one can say, “Oh, hold it!  There is a tribe we just discovered in a jungle, and they did not hear, so it cannot be that the day of salvation is over.”  Or they may refer to some faraway land where the Gospel did not reach them all that well. 

But the truth is that even places like North Korea received warning prior to May 21, 2011, as the people of God sent balloons from South Korea to the North, containing tracts and information concerning Judgment Day.  Of course China received broadcasts, as well as India.  The message went practically all over the world, so nobody can charge that there was a missed “nation” out there.  But even if there were, it would not matter, just as if there were a newly discovered tribe because the Great Commission was never for the political nations, but it was always targeted at the “nations of them which are saved.”  And once they were all “baptized” by the Holy Spirit in salvation, they were thus “taught,” as that would accompany the teaching that comes from prophesying or declaring of the Word of God.  So 100% were saved, and the Great Commission has been fulfilled in a positive and total way.  It was a complete and outstanding success.

On the other hand, for those that insist, “No – this verse is talking about carrying the Gospel to physical nations,”  again, the command was to “teach all nations,” and Christ stated this back in the first century A. D.  So was it true that all (physical) nations were taught during the New Testament era?  No.  Large portions of the world at various periods of time in history were not taught, and they did not have the Gospel.  As a matter of fact, it may have taken several centuries for the Gospel to reach a certain Pacific island, and it did not get into all nations.  Even when it got into all nations, were all the people within those nations “baptized”?  At best, maybe a number of people may have been baptized, but the majority were not, even in the most Christian of nations.

Now today in the nations of the world, there are many Muslim and Communist nations that do not allow Christianity.  Physical baptism is relatively rare in these places.  So if we look at it from the perspective of political or physical nations of the world, the Great Commission would have been a tremendous failure, for the most part.  But it was not (a failure) because God fulfilled it fully and completely.  He caused the Gospel to go forth to find all the lost sheep of Israel, and they became the nations of them which are saved, both Jew and Gentile, and all were baptized by the Holy Spirit and taught by God through the hearing of the Word of God, the Bible.  Once salvation was complete, there was nothing hindering God from proceeding to the next phase of His overall plan for this world, which is judgment.  Judgment Day could then begin.  The Husbandman waited for the early and latter rain in order to receive the precious fruit of the earth.  After the rains had fallen, He received the fruit, and He need no longer wait, and that is why God has been pouring out His wrath for a number of years now, and it will continue until the year 2033, according to biblical evidence.

So the “great gulf” is now fixed.  It is established by the Word of God.  The Word is doing the judging.  The Word is the “door,” is it not?  Jesus said, “I am the door.”  And Jesus is the Word.  So the Word opened the door through the ministering of His Word, and that doorway to heaven was opened up to those God intended to save in the proper time and season.  And it is also through the ministry of the Word that the door is shut.  The Word had permitted entry into the kingdom of God, but now the door prevents entry into the kingdom of God.  It is shut.  The Word of God, the Bible, has shut the door as it carries out the judgment written. 

So this is the impassable gulf that is represented in Genesis 31 as a “heap of stones,” or the “heap of witness.”   Of course God is the witness.  The Lord Jesus is represented by the stone, and it is His Word that has declared these things.  And when God declares something, it is a promise.  It is a faithful Word.  He is the true and faithful witness.  You know, we read that language in Genesis 31 that said, “…see, God is witness betwixt me and thee,” and it is really language indicating that God is a God of an oath, and He is a God who has sworn.  And the whole Bible carries with it the testimony that every Word is absolutely true and faithful, without error.  God cannot lie.  So He has basically set His seal to these things, that He will accomplish all that the Bible has spoken of, and He has already accomplished the salvation of souls, which was the longstanding mission of God to complete.  It has taken thousands of years, but God has fulfilled it, and He has finally saved everyone He had planned to save, and that leaves the matter of the new resurrected bodies that He will take care of on that last day, after this prolonged Judgment Day period.

First of all, God had also sworn that this Judgment Day period would come, and it did.  And, you know, that is not a minor thing throughout the Bible.  Any reader of the Bible will find warning, after warning, after warning that sin would bring the judgment and wrath of God.  Sometimes it would be very specific as God describes the day of JEHOVAH’s wrath, like in Zephaniah 1 or in many chapters in Revelation or Jeremiah.  It is the cup of the wrath of God that would be given to the wicked of the world to drink.  Again, it has been the longstanding warning that Judgment Day was coming, and Zephaniah 2 warned to seek the Lord “… before the day of the JEHOVAH’S anger come upon you.”  That was the day to seek JEHOVAH that you might be hid in the day of JEHOVAH’S anger.  That is, you must be hid in Christ through salvation and, therefore, safe, and secure.  The furious anger of a vengeful God then could not harm you if you were hid in the Lord Jesus Christ, by His grace and mercy.

But if you were not His, or if the time had elapsed, then the “day of salvation” passed.  And God did wait very patiently, and He was longsuffering in putting up with the sins of mankind.  If you are alive and the day of salvation is over, and you have entered into the Day of Judgment, you cannot charge God that He must save you.  “Save me, O, God!  Lord, Lord, open the door for me!”  No – the answer will be, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”  Or if the request is made, “Have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame,” He will very gently and compassionately answer as we read in Luke 16:25-26:

…Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

It is telling us the very same thing, as we have long understood from Revelation 22:10-11:

And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

That is unheard of in the Bible for the sinner to remain a sinner still, or the wicked to be wicked still.  No – it was never the plan of God for most of history, and it was never expressed to the people of God in that way.  It was always, “Go forth.  Be ambassadors and beckon them for me, and encourage them to cry aloud that I might have mercy.”  That was the command of God because there was in that time mercy available, and from man’s perspective, it could have been anyone that became saved.  Only at the end, during Judgment Day for the world, is it the time when the great gulf is fixed, and the unjust are to be unjust still, and the righteous are to be righteous still, with Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom and the rich man in hell.