Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #10 in Genesis 35, and we are going to read Genesis 35:8: 

But Deborah Rebekah's nurse died, and she was buried beneath Bethel under an oak: and the name of it was called Allonbachuth.

We are finding out some good spiritual information related to the time of the end, and it fits in with many things we learned before concerning the end of the church age.  This is another verse that confirms that “in the fulness of time” when we would get to the year 1988 and the binding of Satan because it should have been 12,000 years, but it turned into 13,000 years because the 1,000-year binding period of Satan was figurative.  God is able to have two numbers that point to the same date and the same end of the world stage of history, the numbers “12” and “13.” 

That is also the time that God began to open His Word.  Lord willing, one day we will move ahead in our study in the book of Genesis, and we will get to the time when Joseph was prime minister in Egypt, and there was a grievous famine that the Lord revealed to him, and he foretold it to Pharoah.  And that is how he was lifted up to second in authority in all the land.  Before the famine, there were seven years of plenty, and they stored up grain against the time of famine because they knew it was coming.  After the seven years of plenty, the famine did come, and for the first couple of years Jacob and his family remained in the land of Canaan, which spiritually typifies the people of God within the churches and congregations.  They heard there was corn in Egypt, but they did not know that Joseph was there, so Jacob sent his sons to Egypt, but kept Benjamin home.  They were sent to buy corn, and they went.  Then Joseph recognized them, but they did not recognize Joseph, and Joseph developed an elaborate scheme in order to force them to go back and bring his brother Benjamin.  Finally, he revealed himself to them 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 the same word translated as “face” about 390 times, and as “presence” only 76 times.  They were “troubled at his face.”  Then it says in Genesis 45:4:

And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.

He convinced them that he was Joseph, and Joseph was a great type of Christ.  This is a historical parable pointing to the fact that Christ would reveal Himself outside of the churches (as this is Egypt, not Canaan), and his brethren represent the elect of God that are in Canaan.  Then he would finally draw them out of Canaan and into Egypt (the world) under his care.  And that is what happened after Joseph revealed his face.  Remember, we looked at 1Corinthians 13:10 which spoke of God’s plan to do away with partial understanding, or partial knowledge, that prevailed over the course of the church age: “But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”  And this happened at the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  Then it says in 1Corinthians 13:12:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

Joseph knew them, but they did not know him until he revealed his face, and he convinced them that he was the one they had sold as a slave into Egypt.  Then when they were face-to-face with him, there was realization, and they brought the whole family from Canaan.  Jacob’s spirit was revived, and all Israel came into Egypt.

And there was the “storehouse of grain,” which points to the hidden truths of the Word of God which was sealed during the years of plenty.  No one was allowed to touch that grain; they were gathering it and putting it in the storehouse.  It was “sealed up,” so to speak, and you could not get any of that grain because it was being kept for a specific purpose when the years of plenty ended.  When the church age came to an end, then it could be accessed.  You see, that matches perfectly.

And they came out of Canaan because the food (or spiritual nourishment) was no longer sufficient, and they came to seek the strong meat, the hidden manna of the Word of God.  And God provided, and He revealed himself “perfectly.”  Again, that is the idea when Deborah, the one who had given suck and provided the milk, died.

If you remember, we looked at Lamentations 4 a couple studies ago, and we saw how God used the word nurse.  It says in Lamentations 4:3-4:

Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.

There was nothing to drink.  It has dried up.  The Word of God is not even giving “milk” in the churches and congregations because the famine had come, the famine of hearing the Word of the Lord.  And the poor children and people in the churches have no more nourishment from God.  The only way to find nourishment would have been to leave the churches, just as Jacob and his family left Canaan after two years, and they went into Egypt.

By the way, from time to time God will provide a Scripture to prove that it is correct to look at the Bible for spiritual meaning.  For example, that is what we are doing when we say that Canaan represents the churches; Egypt represents the world; Joseph is a type of Christ; and Jacob and his family coming out of Canaan and entering Egypt represents the people of God coming out of the churches, and going out into the world where they would find the spiritual food that is needed to strengthen their souls, and so forth.  When we say that is the time of the Great Tribulation, we say that because God says that very thing in Acts 7 when He refers to that seven years of famine as “great affliction,” and those are the same two words (megas-thlipsis) translated as “great tribulation.”  With that statement, God is telling us that the seven-year famine typifies the Great Tribulation, and He broke it up as two years in Canaan, and five years in Egypt.  The coming out of Canaan and going to into Egypt was a picture of departing out of Judea (the churches) and fleeing to the mountains (to God).  And it all fits perfectly because it is true.  This is the teaching of the Bible.  God is a God that knows the end from the beginning, and knowing the end, He was able to place Scripture clear back in Genesis as He gave this information to Moses regarding what would happen at the end of the world. 

This verse in Lamentations refers to these poor children, and remember that God likens true believers to His children.  We are addressed as “little children,” especially in 1John where we are called “little children” again, and again.  But those in the congregations have nothing to “suck,” and that is the point in Matthew 24, a chapter that relates to the time of the Great Tribulation and the end of the world.  We read in Matthew 24:19-21:

And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation…

It is saying the same thing as it was saying with the seven-year famine, the great tribulation (megas-thlipsis).  We see that it says woe unto them that are with child and them that give suck.  Woe to the nurses!  Woe to Deborah who had given us suck because it is over.  There is no more “milk” to be given.

And, yes, we are told that Deborah died.  The Word that gave suck died, and was buried under the oak tree, and it certainly reminds us of Revelation 11, although there are some differences.  But there are similarities as well regarding the two witnesses, as it says in Revelation 11:3:

And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.

The two witnesses are those that prophesied in the churches, and their prophecy was partial.  They had partial understanding and partial prophesying, according to what 1Corinthians 13 said.  And the two witnesses are “Moses and Elijah.”  Moses identifies with the Law, and Elijah identifies with the prophets.  God uses the phrase “the law and the prophets” from time to time to typify the Bible.  So the two witnesses were prophesying in the churches over the course of the church age.  Then it goes on to say in Revelation 11:4-5:

These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.

Now notice what it says here regarding the two witnesses in Revelation 11:6:

These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy…

When we search the Bible, who especially stands out as someone who prayed, and heaven was shut?  Let us go to James 5:17:

Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.

As I mentioned, one of the two witnesses was Elijah (Elias), and the two witnesses had “power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood…”  Who was it that turned water to blood?  God did it, but who did He use?  He used Moses.  When Pharaoh went down by the river and Moses touched the water with his rod, God turned the water into blood.  It was through Moses.  So we see these two powers (to shut heaven that it rain not, and to turn the waters into blood) identify with Moses and Elijah, or “the law and prophets,” which is the Word of God.  Then it goes on to say in Revelation 11:6:

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.

The witness of the Word in the churches will be “killed,” and that means it will die.  The difference in this passage in Revelation 11 is that we read of the two witnesses that “their dead bodies shall lie in the street…and they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.”  And there is a reason for that because after the end of the church age, the churches continued to possess Bibles; they had Bibles in their pews and pulpits, and they continued to read and be taught from the Bible.  So the Word was there, but it was “lifeless.”  It was “dead” because the Spirit of Christ had departed out of the midst of the congregations, and without the Spirit the Word can be preached and read all day long, and it is not going to make any impact as far as salvation is concerned.  There can be no saving faith that comes by hearing, as Romans 10:17 declares: “For faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  But it must be in conjunction with working of the Spirit of God.  No one can just pick up a Bible and use it as a “magic wand” to open someone’s spiritual ears and bring them to (spiritual) life.  So that is the reason for their dead bodies remaining unburied.  They still have Bibles, but they are dead.  And that is the similarity with Deborah because Deborah has died. 

The two witnesses will later be called the two prophets that stand upon their feet after three and one half days, and that identifies with the second part of the Great Tribulation when the earth was being evangelized, and Egypt represents the world.  There was then an abundance of corn in Egypt (in the world) as God sent forth the Gospel, especially over the electronic medium, to save the great multitude, and so forth.  It is just amazing how God laid this out so marvelously with the harmonization and tying together of spiritual meaning here and there, and it all fits together perfectly.  And that is how we know we have come to truth.