Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #12 of Genesis 33, and let me read again Genesis 33:15-17:

And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me. And he said, What needeth it? let me find grace in the sight of my lord. So Esau returned that day on his way unto Seir. And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built him an house, and made booths for his cattle: therefore the name of the place is called Succoth.

I will stop reading there.  Esau offered to leave some of the folk that were with him with Jacob.  We know this refers to some of the men that came with Esau, as we read back in Genesis 33:1:

And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred men…

So Esau was saying he would leave some of them, whether it was 10 or 50, or whatever.  And “some of the folk” means people.  If you remember, when we looked up references to “400,” we saw that it was used at least a couple of times with King David.  He had men that became part of his army, and they would go to battle.  In one case, he had 600 men, but 200 of them were weary and stayed behind by the stuff.  And 400 of them were stronger, and they went with him to the battle.  We discussed the one third/two thirds relationship, and we know that in the Bible God typifies His people as the “third part,” and those that are not His people as “two thirds,” or “.666.”  And we spent some time discussing how the language of the Bible indicates that the 400 mean (two thirds) went with David to battle to recover their wives and stuff.  The Amalekites had raided them and stolen all their families and flocks, so David went to deliver the captives.  David is a great type of Christ, and it spiritually pictured Christ’s battle to free His people and deliver the captives, as He set free the captives to sin and to Satan.  We saw that when the Lord spoke of this battle, He was referring to David, alone, as delivering them (and not the 400 men) because David is a great type of Christ, and Christ alone is the Saviour, and He, alone, gets the glory: “I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me…”  That is the language of the Bible when it comes to the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fact that He, by Himself, paid for the sins of His people.  None of His people could have assisted in that endeavor.  It had to be the Lord alone. 

That is why we are a little amazed to see that the 400 who went forth to battle and fought beside David were called wicked men, and men of Belial.  Of course, if you are fighting a natural battle, you would want men with you, but God was painting this picture on a spiritual level where they were the wicked ones, while the 200 who stayed by the stuff were likened to the faithful ones, and they received their portion although they did not go to the battle.  In spiritual battles, you would want the man who realizes that he can do nothing.  He cannot contribute anything.  He cannot fight to add any worth.  If he tries to do so, he is like the man who picked up a few sticks on the Sabbath day in the wilderness, and he came under the wrath of God.  He was a wicked man, and he was stoned to death.

So regarding the 400 of David’s men, they were like those that try to add a little work to God’s grace.  They were with David (Christ).  “Yes,” they would say, “I am a believer.  The Lord saved me.”  But they do not trust 100% of their salvation to the Lord, but they have to do their part – they have to accept Him; they have to walk down the aisle; they have to say the Sinner’s Prayer; they have to partake of the Lord’s table; they have to be water baptized.  Whatever the work is, they have to contribute, and that is why they are likened to wicked men.  But for those that stayed behind, it is as if they realized that they could do nothing at all.  “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 2:16) 

We saw that spiritual picture, and these 400 men are with Esau, and we have seen that Esau is a picture of the Law, which identifies with God, and that is why Jacob is showing him great respect in bowing his knee and with the language regarding finding grace in his lord’s sight.  But the 400 men with Esau are like those that are trying to get right with God by the keeping of the Law.

So when Esau said, “Let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me,” Jacob replied, “What needeth it? let me find grace in the sight of my lord.”  The flocks and the wives and children of Jacob typify those that are truly saved.  They are the great multitude that came out of Great Tribulation.

And here was the test: “Let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me.”  That is, let some of these men that follow the Law (in an attempt to get right with God) dwell with Jacob and his family, and take on the task with them, and be with them.  And Jacob would have none of it.  He would not have a single one of them or a few of them.  He did not want Esau to lead him, and he did not want to go with the 400 men of Esau, and neither did he want to go with ten of them, or even two of them.  He did not want any of them with him and his flocks and children. 

Why?  Remember that during the church age it was God’s program in the churches to allow both the wheat and the tares to grow together.  And we could define “wheat” and “tares,” as those which are under grace, and those which are under the Law, respectively.  Both profess to be saved, but in their spiritual marriage relationship, those under the Law are still married to the Law. They have not become born again, and dead to the Law, but they remain under the Law.  On the other hand, those that God has truly saved have become “dead to the Law” through the body of Christ in order to be married to another, Jesus Himself, and they become the bride of Christ.  They are no longer obligated to the Law.  The Law has nothing on them.  It has no demands to make for their transgressions because all has been paid, and they are free from that bondage in that marriage relationship to the Law, and they are now married to Christ, and under grace.

So the flocks and family of Jacob are, as it were, under grace, as Jacob is a great type of Christ here.  And that is why Jacob responded, “What needeth it? let me find grace in the sight of my lord.”   Again, and again, it is grace, grace, grace!    “Do not leave any of your people because we are under grace.  We only want those that are under grace with us.” 

And you see, this is what God did at the time of the end.  He had allowed both to dwell together in the churches during the church age, but at the time of the end, He separated them with the mechanism of the Word of God.  The Word of God was like a machine the Lord used as He opened the Scriptures to reveal that some were accepted, and some were not accepted, like Cain and Abel, and it was time for those that were accepted of God to depart out of the midst of the congregations, and to depart out into the world, because God had begun the judgment process at the house of God.  The churches were under His wrath.  The Spirit of God had left, and Satan had entered in.  So the command of God was to get out and flee to the mountains, and depart out of the midst.  It was a very clear command on the spiritual level because it is found in places like Matthew 24 and Luke 21.  The command was phrased in spiritual language, like, “Let them which be in Judaea,” or “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation…stand in the holy place.” 

So God was using types and figures of the temple and the house of God, or Jerusalem, or Judaea, and rightly so, because He had said in the Old Testament several times that if the nations of Israel and Judah were unfaithful and served other gods, then God would judge them and make them a byword and a proverb.  He said it also of the “house.”  And there it is in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, as it says,  “Let them which be in Judaea,” which had become a proverb, and a proverb is a parable.  So we have to look to see what that means.  And of course, they were God’s people, so they typify and represent those that were God’s people in the New Testament era, the churches.  So let them in the churches when they see the abomination of desolation (Satan) in the holy place (the churches), then flee to the mountains, which means to flee to God and His Word, the Bible. 

So God set in motion the mechanism, the Word of God that was pronouncing and carrying out the judgment, and because the people of God are in tune to His Word as He speaks, they heard and obeyed.  They have a new born again soul, so God moved in them to will and to do of His good pleasure.  And they got out (of the churches), and 100% of them did so because God was working in them.  God would not leave a single child of God behind.  He guaranteed it.  He made sure He got them all out, but the same could not be said of the tares.  They were not given ears to hear.  They did not have the Spirit of God.  They did not understand the spiritual level of the Word of God, the Bible.  They were natural-minded, and they operated on the surface level of the Scriptures – the plain, historical, literal method of interpretation.  That is what they insisted upon because it was all they could really understand, so they did not “hear.”  They did not discern time and judgment, as God said they would not in many places in the Bible: “…and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.” (Daniel 12:10) 

So through this mechanism, the Lord carried out the separation of people, the wheat and the tares.  Also, at this time (and that is what we really see here), God began sending forth the Word of God outside the churches during the Latter Rain period to save that great multitude, so when Jacob refused the people that Esau wanted to leave with him (people of the Law), it certainly reminds us of God’s program for the time of the end when He saved the great multitude and “cleansed His temple,” so to speak.

This is laid out in the two main fishing expeditions that the Bible speaks of, as we read in Luke 5:1-3:

And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship.

The fact that Christ is in the ship points to the church age because the ship can represent the churches.  In Acts 27, the shipwreck indicates the end and destruction of the corporate church.

Then it says in Luke 5:4-6:

Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake.

Here, we see the Gospel proclamation over the course of the 1,955 years of the church age.  They let down the net, and they caught a great catch of fish, a great multitude of fish. By the time of the end, there were about two billion professed Christians in the churches of the world.  That is a tremendous number, a great multitude that was far greater than the great multitude that was later saved out of Great Tribulation.  But the only problem is, the vast majority of those in the churches were not saved – they were the tares. 

So this is why God pictures this as a great multitude that were taken up out of the sea (which represents hell), and they were taken up into the net, which represents the kingdom of God in its safety and security.  Within that net, you would be safe and secure.  But the only problem in this picture is that the net broke, and when a net breaks, the fish come out of the net.  And that is what happened over the course of the church age.  They heard the Word (many are called), and they went into the churches and filled the churches across the face of the earth.  And yet, the net of the kingdom of God broke.  They came out of the eternal kingdom, in the sense that when anyone responds to the Gospel, it is as though they became saved, and if you became saved, it is as though you received eternal life.  But if you never truly become saved, it is like you “slipped out of the net.”  There is a problem with the net.  So there were multitude of professed Christians who say they are Christians with their tongues, but their hearts were far from God.  And this was the first main fishing expedition that was carried out over the 1,955 years of the church age.