Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #35 of Genesis 31, and we will read Genesis 31:54-55:

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.

We have been  carefully looking at this covenant made between Jacob and Laban, and we have seen how it ties in with Judgment Day.  We also saw  regarding the heap of stones and the pillar that an agreement was made that none would pass over the heap to thee, and none would pass over the other way.  And we saw how that relates to the language in Luke 16 regarding the rich man in hell and Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom.

Then we saw that after the covenant was made and there was a heap of stones set up…and again, the heap was the boundary or limit, and no one could go either way across the heap of stones.  The house of Laban would stay on one side, and the house of Jacob would stay on the other side.

Then we read in Genesis 31:54:

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.

We talked about that a little bit.  We saw that this was not surprising because in John 21, at the point of the end of the Great Tribulation and the beginning of Judgment Day, God set up a command, “Feed my sheep.”  We also saw that the Lord Jesus called the disciples to Himself, in John 21:9-14:

As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread. Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken. Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise. This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead.

We can see a further connection between the eating of bread on mount Galeed, and the Lord providing bread for His disciples at the point of the great catch of fish, which was also the time of His resurrection.  Now we know that the Lord was resurrected in 33 A. D.  He went to the cross, and then He rose early Sunday morning in the month of April in 33 A. D., and that was the point of 40 calendar years since He was born in 7 B. C.  If we add 33 and 7, we have 40 calendar years (39 actual years).  That matches Jacob’s length of stay in Haran of 40 years.  Then he fled, and then Laban caught up to him at the mount. 

So Jacob calling his brethren is a picture of Christ feeding His brethren with bread.  And the timeline of 40 years matches.  But we know more about this because this is speaking of the great catch of fish, which represents the great multitude that came out of Great Tribulation, and we know that immediately after the Tribulation ended, then Judgment Day began.

So what does it mean to “eat bread?”  We also know that in this passage in John 21, the Lord addressed Peter (who had denied Him three times), and after they had eaten the bread and the fish, Jesus said in John 21:15:

So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

Then He said at the end of verse 16, “Feed my sheep,” and at the end of verse 17, He said, “Feed my sheep.”  It was all in relationship to the question, “Do you love me?”  And Simon Peter responded, “Yeah, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.”  Three times he was told, “Feed my sheep,” and we know that biblical love is obedience, as the Lord said in the Gospel of John: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”  And what is the commandment here?  “Feed my sheep.” 

We have talked about this often, which is good because this is the primary command of God to His people for the Day of Judgment.  Feed the sheep.  And we know the sheep are not literal sheep.  Again, it is a parable, is it not?  It is just like when John the Baptist saw Jesus approaching, and he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”  You know, the theologians and the corporate churches denounce “spiritualizing” (looking for the deeper spiritual meaning) unless we are directly told it is a parable, or unless the New Testament interprets something in the Old Testament.  They have a lot of manmade conditions that allow only a little spiritual truth to filter through their “hermeneutic,” which was devised from their own imaginations.  But they understand that John the Baptist saw Jesus approaching.  He was not seeing an actual lamb, but he called out, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”  And that is consistent with how God wrote the Bible and how the Bible is to be properly understood.  The lamb is a sacrifice, and in this case, Christ is the sacrificial lamb.

And regarding sheep, it is a very simple spiritual definition that the Bible gives us.  Sheep are people.   In Psalm 23, it says, “JEHOVAH is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.”  It is language that a sheep would say, if a sheep could speak: “My shepherd is going to make me lie down in green pastures, and I am going to have a nice meal in the green pasture, and then I will lie by still waters.”  And these same theologians will read Psalm 23 and they do interpret it spiritually, and they say, “Well, Christ is the Shepherd, and we are the sheep,” but where does it say that?  They pick and choose when to enforce their hermeneutic of their “historical, grammatical, literal method of interpretation,” but only  when they please to do so.  But when someone is teaching something they do not like, and that person arrived at his conclusion through proper biblical spiritual interpretation, they say, “Oh, do not listen to him.  He is over-spiritualizing.”  And they dismiss the conclusion.  But that is not right and proper, and it is not being faithful to the Bible to have such “spotty” methods of interpretation.

But the people of God are given the right tools, as God says in 1Corinthians 2:13: “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”   And “two or three witnesses” must agree.  We cannot have just a single witness, and by that we understand that when we are comparing spiritual with spiritual, and this verse with that verse, there must be agreement in the Scriptures, and the “two or three witnesses” are God the father, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son.  And the Word of God is the testimony or witness that must be in agreement, and that is where the principle fits in that we must harmonize all conclusions.  If we are carefully doing that by looking up words, following the words through the Bible, and allowing the Bible to define its own terms, then when we come to certain conclusions, we ask, “Does this fit with everything else in the Bible?”  Then we can know we have truth, and we are on the right path.

So when we read that they (Jacob and his brethren) ate bread in the mount, or we read that Christ was giving the disciples bread at the point of the end of the second major fishing expedition…and it was an extremely successful fishing expedition, and they had a great catch of 153 fish.  And it did not seem to be that organized a fishing trip, did it?  They were a few disciples and friends that were hanging out, not knowing quite what was going with their lives.  Then the Lord gave them directions to cast their net on the other side, and they caught the great catch of fish. 

It was just like how the Lord used a sort of “rag-tag” group of believers that had been castaways that were driven out of the churches and congregations, and some other people that were picked up that were standing idle all the day long, and God put them to work in the months leading up to May 21, 2011.  God did not use the great and majestic corporate church and its power, authority, wealth, and numbers.  No – God did not use them.  He used them during the church age, and He had a reasonable harvest.  But, finally, at the end, He rid Himself of the corporate church that had gone apostate, and He said, “I will use my people.”  They had limited wealth, but they pooled their resources.  They did not have the glory, grandeur, and the greatness of the church, and they had no real authority or power in the world.  They were really not even noticed like the world might recognize the enormous corporate churches and their leaders.  The world kind of lumps all the churches together as far as their understanding of Christians as anyone that identifies with a church. 

But the Lord just used the few, and He opened up the electronic medium, and He had made all the preparations through the little ministry of Family Radio and Mr. Camping.  God had everything He needed, and He had them “cast their net,” but not within the churches, and the net was filled with the great multitude.  A great multitude of elect were saved from all four points of the compass across the world, and the net did not break.  Everyone who was saved was saved through the Word of God, as God individually saved them and brought them into the heavenly kingdom of Jerusalem, but not into the corporate churches.  The church age was over.  The great catch came out of the labor of these few individuals that were doing the fishing.  The great catch of fish was there, and then Jesus said in John 21:10-12:

Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken. Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine…

It is as though they leave the net full of great fishes, and they go dine.  What would be the point?  It would be similar to when the Lord broke the bread with the miracle of the loaves and a few fish.  We even see the same ingredients here – fish and bread.  Why did the Lord do this?  It was because there were thousands of people following Him, and it was late in the day.  They had no food, but what they did have was two loaves and some fish.  So He called His disciples to Himself, and He broke the bread and gave them baskets, and He told them to go around and feed the people that were gathered into smaller companies.  And they fed the people, and there was enough for the whole multitude to eat, with some left over, because God had done a miracle.  He worked a miracle.  It should not have been possible.  Maybe a hundred people could eat a little bit of bread a few fish, but there were thousands of people.  But the food was multiplied.

And we know what “bread” refers to, spiritually, if we go to Matthew 16:6-12:

Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread. Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?  Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?  Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

(I need to make a correction here because there were five loaves with the seven thousand people, and seven loaves with the four thousand.)  Again, Christ spoke in parables.  He did not say, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven.”  He appeared to be talking normally and just having discussion with them.  And when He mentioned the leaven of the Pharisees, they began to think “naturally.”  You know, we have to watch ourselves because we are still “in the flesh,” which means there is a part of us that is still “natural.”  Our spirit has been made new and is spiritual, but we are one personality, and we have a history in our life of thinking naturally.  These disciples were saved people, but the Word of God is a mystery, and the spiritual nature of it resides in a “hidden place,” and if you are not paying attention and listening carefully, it is as though the meaning can just go right by you, and you did not really see it.  But then the Lord helped them, and they realized that it was a parable, and that “leaven” equals doctrine, or “bread” equals doctrine.  Their leaven or their doctrine was their “teaching,” and they were not teaching truthfully and faithfully, and that is what we must be aware of.

So, again, here in John 21:16, the great catch of fish was caught.  It was caught, and we cannot emphasize that enough.  And that means that everyone to be saved out of the Great Tribulation have been saved, and the only time that can be said is at the end of it.  And since the fishing expedition was over, the fish were caught.  They had even come out of the water and were on the land.  It is conclusive that the Great Tribulation was completed, the full 23 years from May 21, 1988 through May 21, 2011.  And now are the “days after that tribulation.”   There is “time” after the Tribulation, as we read in Mark 13:24: “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light.”  We are actually told that there are a period of days that come after the spiritual darkening of the sun.  And when did the sun darken?  It was immediately after the Tribulation.  That is how we understand it.

And the first thing Christ did when they came to land…you know, He did not immediately tell them three times, “Feed my sheep.”  But before He said that He first fed them: “Bring of the fish which ye have now caught.”  And then He said, “Come, and dine.”  Then it says in John 21:13:

Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise.

It is as if He is saying, “Here is the doctrine.  Here is the teaching for Judgment Day.”  In other words, this is “therevelation of the righteous judgment of God.”  It is absolutely necessary to set that great multitude aside for a bit.  There is the “great catch of fish” over there, and they are caught, which means that on the spiritual level, they are all safe and secure in the kingdom of heaven.  “But before we get back to them and do the task regarding them, you first need to eat bread and fish – you need to understand the doctrine of Judgment Day.  You have to come to know why it is that you are still on the earth.” 

Remember, right after May 21, 2011, we had no clue.  “Why are we still here?  Why did it not happen like we thought it would?  Why was there no literal earthquake?  Why was it not a literal five-month period of judgment? What is going on?  Were we all wrong?  How could it be?”  We had said, “The Bible guarantees it.  May 21, 2011, Judgement Day!”  We proclaimed it with an “exclamation mark.”    So many of us were troubled because God’s true elect people have a love for the truth, and we desire always to speak the truth, and it is extremely upsetting and troubling to us if we were to think we lied.  It is like we are smitten inwardly when we say or do something wrong regarding the Word of God, or when we teach an error.  “Oh, no!  This is horrible.”  It is the nature that God has put within us to want to quickly move to correct biblical error, and to explain and admit we were wrong. 

So after May 21, 2011, many of God’s people were in this very uncomfortable position of having learned these things and “hearing the voice of Christ.”  We know His voice, and we recognize His voice, the voice of truth.  And we heard the things that Mr. Camping and Family Radio were teaching, and it was laid out so nicely, and it all fit together so perfectly.  May 21, 2011 locked in like nothing had ever locked in before, and we knew that was the day.  But circumstances and our own physical eyes were telling us, “No – you were all wrong.  Nothing happened.”  And we did have to admit that we were wrong about the literal earthquake and a literal period of five months.  But it is a different matter regarding the day itself as Judgment Day, and the timelines that pointed to that date, and many other things.  We could not find any error or falsehood in that, so we could not apologize and say, “Well, that was wrong.”  And what can one do in a situation like that?  There is only one thing that an elect child of God can do when we are in a position where we do not know what is going on, and that is to wait on the Lord.  And as we waited, it was the time after the great catch of fish and after the early days of Judgment Day, that the Lord Jesus is feeding us.  He is giving us the “bread” or the doctrine and understanding about what transpired.  It was a spiritual judgment, and it would be a prolonged judgment, and He did not open up certain things at the first, like the timing of the rapture, or the fact that the elect would remain living on the earth until the very last day.  So many things have since come forth, and we see how it all fits together and ties in, biblically and faithfully.  And now that we understand these things, we are ready for the next step.  Then comes the three-fold question: “Lovest thou me?”  And we respond, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.”  “Feed my sheep.”