Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #13 in Genesis 35, and we are continuing to look at Genesis 35:8-10: 

But Deborah Rebekah's nurse died, and she was buried beneath Bethel under an oak: and the name of it was called Allonbachuth. And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padanaram, and blessed him. And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel.

We have been spending a good deal of time on verse 8 concerning Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, who died.  We understand that the name “Deborah” means “word,” and the word translated as “nurse” is the word that means to give “suck.”  And that fits perfectly with the spiritual picture of the Word of God, the Bible, providing spiritual milk to those who had become born again, but she has “died.”

And that led us to what happened at the time of the end when the church age ended.  Then the “two witnesses” that represented the Word of God and the ministry of the Word within the churches and congregations over the 1,955 years of the church age were “killed.” The Word “died” within the churches and congregations.

Also, in verse 8 we cannot help but see the heavy emphasis on Deborah being buried beneath Bethel, which means “house of God.”  So the house of God is “above” Deborah, and that led us to look at a couple of Scriptures where God speaks of Jerusalem, the holy city, being trodden under foot.  You know, it is very illustrative of what actually took place in the spiritual realm regarding the reason that God had to judge the churches.  Remember that Scripture in 1Timothy 3:15:

But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

Here, we are told directly that the house of God is the church.  We find that the churches will quickly and readily acknowledge that they are the house of God, and, therefore, that they are the “pillar and ground of truth,” because they like that idea.  They want that kind of authority and power; they want to be the ones who are able to “loose” on earth, or to “bind” on earth, and they do not understand that what is loosed on earth is that which was first having been loosed in heaven, or that which is bound is that which was having been bound in heaven.  In other words, the prior action is God’s.  It is God’s Gospel.  It is His power and His authority, and there is no way that the corporate church can be the pillar and ground of truth.  It is extremely obvious, especially when we see that all the churches teach different things, so what church is the pillar and ground of truth?  No – it was never the church, but it has always been the living God.

Again, the “house of God” is the church, and this was a test for them.  Would they be humble?  Would they submit to the will of God and the power and authority of His Word, the Bible, as He reveals His doctrine through the Scripture?  Or would they usurp authority and rise up above the authority of the Word to think that they are the ones who determine what is the pillar and ground of truth?  They selected the latter, and that is why in their pride the churches hold fast to their doctrines that they have fixed in their confessions and creeds and their denominational positions, and they will not budge from them.  “We are the pillar and ground of truth.  Why should we budge?”  But the fact is that the Bible reveals that the teachings in their confessions and creeds that they firmly hold to are false.  They are lies.  But it does not penetrate or shake them one bit, and they set themselves above the Bible.  And that was developing over the course of the church age, but at the time of the end the Spirit of God departed from them, leaving the Bible behind in the congregations but without the Spirit of God empowering and quickening the Word, and so forth.  So it was like a “dead thing.” 

And that is the condition at the end, as Bethel, the house of God, was above, and Deborah was beneath.  The Word was beneath, and that is what God is emphasizing when He says that she was buried beneath Bethel under an oak.   And the name of the oak was called Allonbachuth, meaning “oak of weeping,” or “God of weeping,” and Christ wept over Jerusalem at the time, we could say, when the Word, the two witnesses, were killed.  So He was viewing a desolate church body, with not one stone left upon another, as the two witnesses were slain.

In our last study, we started to look at the Greek word “pat-eh'-o,” Strong’s #3961, and we saw it is the word used in Revelation 11:2: “

…and the holy city shall they tread under foot…”  Again, that matches up with the end of the church age, the loosing of Satan, and the beginning of the Great Tribulation.

We also saw that same word used a second time in an identical context, spiritually, where we read of Jerusalem being compassed about with armies.  God says in Luke 21:23-24:

But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

Here, this is the second time we see the same truth stating that when the church age was over  the churches would be trodden under foot.  And we saw how this relates to Satan receiving “authority,” and we can also see that in Revelation 13, where we can see exactly what time is in view.  It says in Revelation 13:1:

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

The “beast” is Satan, and to rise up out of the sea is to rise up out of the “deep,” or the “bottomless pit.”  That was the loosing point of Satan after the 1000 figurative years of his having been bound.  That is the same point in time, and we can pinpoint it to May 21, 1988.  Then we read in Revelation  11 concerning the two witnesses in Revelation 11:7:

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.

It is the same “beast,” Satan, rising up out of the bottomless pit, or up out of the sea, which represents his coming out of the prison he was in, as it were, when he was bound.  Then we read in Revelation 13:5:

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

The Greek word translated as “power” is the word “authority.”  See how the forty-two months matches perfectly with Revelation 11:2:

But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

It was given to the Gentiles, or nations.  It was given to Satan.  He was given the power, or authority, to continue for 42 months, and that is a figure that represents the entirety of the Great Tribulation, the full 23 years.  That is how long the court which was without the temple was given to the Gentiles.  It was the entire Great Tribulation when they trampled underfoot the churches and congregations.

Also it says in Revelation 13:7:

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

So we know he had great power, or great authority, during that Great Tribulation period.  It was given unto him because God is the One who loosed him.  God is the only one who can give “authority” because authority rests in God.   He possesses all authority.  He is the One who gives governments and their rulers authority.  Remember what it says in Romans 13:1: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”   And that “power” or “powers” is the word “ex-oo-see'-ah.”  So there is no authority but of God.  The powers that be are ordained of God.  Power is derived from God, and He is the One who has given authority.

So at the time that Jerusalem was trodden under foot, the authority was given to the king of the Gentiles, or the king of Babylon, who is Satan.  It is just as in the Old Testament when God spoke of Nebuchadnezzar as His servant.  And what task did God give Nebuchadnezzar to perform?  It was to destroy the rebellious nation of Judah and the city of Jerusalem, and to bring into captivity the Jewish people.  God gave him that authority because it pointed to what would happen at the end of time when the enemies of God and His kingdom would be given the power to overcome the camp of the saints, or Jerusalem, and so forth.

So there is a link, and we can see clearly with those two verses (Luke 21:24 and Revelation 11:2) the treading under foot of Jerusalem, or the holy city.  And in order to do so, power had to be given. 

We also went to Luke 10, which caused us to have to “back track” from Luke 21:24 and Revelation 11:2 where we were looking at the end of the church age.  But in Luke 10, Christ sent forth the seventy two-by-two, and it certainly connected with the whole idea of sending forth the Word, the testimony of the “two witnesses.”  The Word of God would go here and there with the “two witnesses.”  In the sending out of the seventy, Christ declared in Luke 10:18:

…I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.

That would relate to the fall of Satan at the time of the cross when he was bound.  That is when he was evicted from appearing in heaven, and the “accuser of the brethren” was cast down, according to Revelation 12.  Then it says of that time in 33 A. D., the beginning of the church age, in Luke 10:19:

Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

We looked at Revelation 11:3-6 which speaks of the testimony of the two witnesses as they ministered on the earth.  They had power (authority) that if any would hurt them, they would destroy them, because the Word of God has that power.  In other words, the churches were given authority (“ex-oo-see'-ah”) for the entirety of the church age.  Again, we can lay it out as beginning in 33 A. D., and concluding in 1988.  The churches had the authority and power because Christ was in the midst, and they could operate under the guidance and direction of the Spirit of God.  There were blessings in their actions, but then the time came when the church age was finished, and the authority, or power, was transferred to Satan and his forces.  At that point, Satan was the one treading under foot.  Keep in mind that when Christ spoke to the seventy that went forth two-by-two, He told them that He gave power to them to tread on serpents, scorpions, and all the power of the enemy.  But at the end of the church age, that power (authority) was given to the devil, the enemy of God, and he would have power over the outward representation of God’s kingdom on the earth, the corporate church.  It was given to him, and he was loosed to go forth and do what he does well, which is to destroy.  And that is exactly what he did in bringing spiritual destruction to all the world’s churches and congregations.

So that is three times that we find this word, and we see that if you possess this power and authority, you are the one that treads under foot, and if you do not possess that authority, then you are the one that is being trodden under foot.  So at the time of Satan’s binding, it was as though Satan and his kingdom were trodden underfoot.  But then the table is turned, and Satan rises up and treads under the churches during the 23 years of the Great Tribulation.

But there is another point of transferring that authority.  For example, in Revelation 14 we will read a fourth time that this Greek word “pat-eh'-o,” translated as “tread under foot.”  But first we have to establish the context, in Revelation 14:8-12:

And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

The context of Babylon’s fall is Judgment Day.  It leads right into the description of drinking of the cup of the wrath of God, and that “drinking of the cup” is done in the presence of the “holy angels,” or saintly messengers, the elect.  In other words, all the elect children of God left on the earth in the Day of Judgment are witnessing this.  We are watching the unsaved inhabitants of the earth be “cut off” before our eyes, as Psalm 37 declares.  In this troubling, or tormenting, in this prolonged Judgment Day period, it is as though they are drinking of the cup of the wrath of God.  We drank of that cup in Christ at the foundation of the world.  We “appear” or are being made manifest, before the judgment seat, but we are not being punished.  We are just making an appearance, or demonstration, that will show at its conclusion that no sin is upon us.  If any sin were upon us, we would be destroyed with everyone else on that last day, but we will endure to the end because God has saved us already. 

So what is in view throughout this time is “the patience of the saints,” and those that “keep the commandments of God.”  What was Christ’s command for Judgment Day, as represented by His command after the great catch of fish that typified the great multitude that came out of Great Tribulation just prior to the beginning of Judgment Day?  What was Christ’s number one command?  “If ye love me, feed my sheep.” 

Again, it says, “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”  So the people of God are here, and the unsaved are here in the Day of Judgment.   There is one event to all, the righteous and the wicked.  So that is the context in Revelation 14, but we have run out of time.  Lord willing, in our next study we will look at a couple of other verses in Revelation 14 where we will find that word for “tread under foot,” and how it relates to the transfer of authority one more (final) time.