Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #15 of Genesis 32, and we will read Genesis 32:30-32:

And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank.

I will stop reading there.  We have been spending some time looking at the phrase “face to face,” which is found in verse 30: “And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face…”  We have seen this is a “clue phrase” that is used in other parts of the Bible: 2John 1:12; 3John 1-13-14; 1Corinthians 13:9-12.  And it has to do with God coming to open the Scriptures at the time of the end because the Word being sealed up is the same thing as the Bible being “hidden.”  That is, the Word was sealed; it was hidden.  It was a mystery in parabolic form, and the correct understanding and underlying truth of the verses were not able to be understood until the time of the end when it was opened up.  Therefore it is no longer “hidden” information. 

Remember, we have advanced our understanding regarding the definition of a parable.  Christ spoke in parables, and without a parable He did not speak.  Yes,  it is true that a parable is “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning,” but that does not cover all parables.  For example, it says in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  It is a seemingly plain statement, and yet, it has much hidden truth.

Our corrected definition for a parable is “that which serves to hide truth.”  And the fact that God was able to keep so many doctrines sealed throughout time until our day at the time of the end indicates that it was hidden doctrine and, therefore, parabolic.  And it can only be interpreted through the Holy Spirit as He opens the understanding of His people.    And once it is interpreted…and this is where that verse comes in that we read in Mark 13:11:

… take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.

The Spirit is said to “speak,” but 1Corinithians 2 tells us that when we compare spiritual things with spiritual, the Holy Ghost teacheth.  So to teach, you have to speak, so it is basically saying the same thing.

So it is now that “hour,” the hour of Great Tribulation which began at the start of the end phase of earth’s history (in 1988), and the Holy Ghost began teaching and guiding the elect children of God into all truth.  Therefore, it is the time when we are speaking “face to face.”  Actually, more truthfully, it is God speaking to us “face to face.”  And that is our phrase.  As it says in 2John 1:12:

Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.

It is the bringing of additional information (revelation), but it cannot be written down because the Bible is complete, but it will be revealed in a “face to face” way, and that simply means that God will make the things that had been mysterious, hidden, and hard to understand understandable, and He will make them plain to the eyes of understanding of His people.  This ties in with what we read in John 16:24-25:

Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father.

Here, we see God’s plan for our day.  Jesus said, “The time cometh,” but the Greek word for “time” is the same word for “hour” that is found in Mark 13:11.  So the hour comes when He will no longer speak in proverbs (parables), but He will show us plainly of the Father.  Then it continues in John 16:26:

At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you:

Then the disciples react in John 16:29:

His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb.

You see, they are acknowledging that Jesus is talking “straight.”  They could understand this, or at least they thought they could to some degree, and that is identified as speaking “plainly.”  If you do not speak a proverb, you are speaking plainly.  And, again, it said in verse 25: “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs.”  Christ spoke in parables, and without a parable He did not speak.  But then He added in verse 25: “but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father.”  This is telling us that “plainness of speech” is when God is no longer speaking in parables.

And it just so happens that this word translated as “plainly” in verses 25 and 29 of John 16 is also used in association with Judgment Day (without any question) in 1John 4:17:

Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

That is the same Greek word, Strong’s #3954, that is translated as “plainly.”  That is, that we may have “plainness” in the Day of Judgment.  So here, God is saying that the elect of God will have boldness or plainness in the Day of Judgment.  It is that “time” or “hour,” and the word “hour” is really defined by the context, so it can be the “hour” of Great Tribulation, or it can be the “hour” of judgment on Babylon (the world), as we read in Revelation 18; or it can be the judgment of Christ, as we read in the Gospel accounts in the Garden of Gethsemane when the disciples slept, and Christ said, “What, could ye not watch  with me one hour?”  It is a word that has to do with judgment. 

Jesus said that in that hour, He would no more speak in proverbs, but plainly.  So that is two references, in John 16:25 and 1John 4:17, where this word “plain” is used concerning the Day of Judgment.  It is telling us God’s plan for the end, as God said to Daniel, “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end…and knowledge shall be increased.”  So the Word was sealed or hidden in the Bible in parabolic form, and it could not be known or understood until the time of the end, and then came the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  While the primary task for the Holy Spirit was to save the great multitude, it was also to guide the people of God into all truth and into a perfect understanding of a certain amount of information the Lord had measured out for us to know.  It is not that we will know everything, but God had certain information He would have His people to know, and that information had only been partially (or not) understood over the course of the church age, but it would be understood at the time of the end after the church age ended (1988).  Then the Great Tribulation came with judgment on the churches, followed by the “recompense of tribulation,” or judgment on the world.  Then the Lord was making Himself known in a special way as though He was speaking “face to face” with His people. 

Again, this is the solution to Exodus 13 when we read that JEHOVAH spoke with Moses face to face as a man speaketh to his friend.  Then later in the same chapter, we were told that no man can see God’s face and live, and Moses had to be hidden in the rock, and as God passed by, he could only see His back parts and not His face.  It is telling us two different things.  One thing is that God will speak “face to face,” which means He will speak “plainly.”  He will reveal the hidden things to His people at the time of the end.  That is why it said that God spoke to Moses face to face, and we can prove this by going to Numbers 12, where Aaron and Miriam were speaking against their brother Moses because he had married an Ethiopian woman.  (Perhaps they were thinking of God’s Law where the Jews were not to have marriage with people of other nations.)  But they had come to the point of thinking they were on equal terms with Moses in their relationship to God.  It says in Numbers 12:2-8:

And they said, Hath JEHOVAH indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And JEHOVAH heard it. (Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.) And JEHOVAH spake suddenly unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and unto Miriam, Come out ye three unto the tabernacle of the congregation. And they three came out. And JEHOVAH came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam: and they both came forth. And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I JEHOVAH will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of JEHOVAH shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?

God is calling Miriam and Aaron out, and the Lord explained that if there was a prophet He would make Himself known to him in a vision or a dream, but Moses was an exception: “With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches.”  When we search the Bible to understand “dark speeches,” we find it has to do with parables.  Let us go to Psalm 78:1-2:

Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.  I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old:

See how a parable is related to “dark sayings.”  So, again, God said of Moses, “With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches.”  So this confirms our understanding that to speak face to face is the mode of communication that is most direct and clear.  Today we have so many different ways of communicating, like phone, text, e-mail, letters, and so forth, but the best way that leads to the least amount of misunderstanding is “face to face.”  You can hear the words, see the expression, and clarify if necessary, when speaking with someone face to face. 

So that is the meaning, and if we bring this back to Genesis 32, it said in Genesis 32:30:

And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face…

Remember, this was all taking place at the breaking of the day, and we have seen how that language is related to Judgment Day, and it is also related to the blessing of Jacob and with other information that has to do with Judgment Day.  So too, Jacob’s experience of meeting God and seeing Him face to face relates to Judgment Day.  Now God has communicated with him.  They have had words together, as God had said, “Let me go, for the day breaketh,” and Jacob said, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me.”  There has been this direct, face to face communication at Peniel.  Then it goes on to say at the end of Genesis 32:30:

… and my life is preserved.

The word “preserved” is Strong’s #5337, and it is often translated as “delivered,” if we go to Isaiah 44:17:

And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.

That is in a negative sense, of course, as those are people making false gods with the hope that they will be delivered.  But let us go to Ezekiel 34:10:

Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.

God will deliver the flock, and this had to do with the judgment on the corporate church, and the time when that happened was the Great Tribulation, and it was during the Great Tribulation that God saved a great multitude outside of the churches and congregations.  So He delivered His flock from the churches, and they went out into the world where the Latter Rain was falling.

Let us look at one other verse in Micah 4:10:

Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there JEHOVAH shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.

This is a spiritual reference to leaving the churches.  The field, according to Matthew 13, is the world.  Going to Babylon confirms our understanding of the churches and the world because Babylon is a picture of the world, and God commanded the people of the “city” to go into captivity in Babylon.  So outside of the churches  in the world was where God saved the great multitude, and that is where they were delivered.

So the fact that Jacob saw God’s face and his life was “delivered” relates to the opening of the Scriptures at the time of the end, and it was the time of judgment on the corporate church, but it was also the time of salvation for the elect outside of the churches where God did a great and final work to save before completing His salvation program.  So seeing God face to face relates to the opening of the Word and the saving of so many.

There is another tie-in to the word “face” and to this great deliverance, in Genesis 45 where Joseph called his brethren to himself, and this was the second time they came back to Egypt.  The first time they had come to find corn and food.  Joseph treated them roughly, and they did not know who he was, as his face was hidden from them.  They had no understanding that he was their brother Joseph, so his identify was veiled or hidden information, and we know that Joseph is a type of Christ.  We also know that the reason his brethren left Canaan to come to Egypt to seek food was because famine was in all lands, and that famine was called “great tribulation” in Acts 7.  So as we read this passage in Genesis 45, we are reading information that has to be with the time of the end when judgment was on the house of God during the Great Tribulation, and God was saving a great multitude outside of the churches.  It says in Genesis 45:1-3:

Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence.

The word “presence” is that word that is also translated as “face.”  Remember that we mentioned that in a previous study.  Strong’s #6440 is translated as face 390 times, and it is also translated as “presence” 76 times, and this is one of those times.  So they were troubled at his “face” or his “presence,” because Joseph had now revealed himself.  And this is exactly what is in view in those Scriptures we read in 2John, 3John, and 1Corinthians 13 regarding God’s intention at the end to speak “face to face.”  “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth…”   This is the revealing of the Scriptures. 

Historically, we know the year was 1877 B. C., and the “great tribulation” had been under way for two years, and there were five more years to go.  We are told that because Joseph explained this to his brothers in this passage.  So there was a “dividing point” (in the tribulation), and this would relate to September 1994 after the 2,300 evening mornings of the Great Tribulation when virtually no one became saved.  There was absolutely no salvation inside the churches, and virtually no salvation in the world because it was the “famine” between the “rains.”  The early rain of the church age had ended (1988) and then there was “famine” until September 1994 when the Latter Rain began falling outside of the churches to bring in the final fruits.

So Joseph, a type of Christ, was revealing his face or presence to his brethren, and they could see his “face.”  And what would be the result?  They would return to get their father Jacob, and the whole family of Jacob (all the children of Israel) would enter into Egypt where they would be spiritually protected and nourished, and they would be fed by Joseph as the rest of the world experienced the grievous famine.  So it is judgment and grace.  It is deliverance, as Joseph saved his family, and that is what he went on to say in Genesis 45:6-7:

For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

It points to the revealing of God at the end.  There would have been no great deliverance at the time of the end if God had not revealed Himself, and He revealed that He was no longer in the churches, and we had to get out.  It was absolutely necessary in order for Him to complete His salvation program.