Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #21 in Genesis 35, and we are continuing to read Genesis 35:16-20:
And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour. And it came to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also. And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin. And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day.
I will stop reading there. We have been looking at the word “travail,” and in our last study, it took us to the New Testament , in 1Thessalonians 5:1:1-4:
But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
In the last study, we discussed some of the things found in this verse, and how it is related to a passage in Luke 21:41-46 that is describing the final judgment on the world.
This word translated as “sudden” is a Greek word that is only found twice. It is found once here, and it is also found in Luke 21, where it refers to that day coming upon you “unawares.” And when we look at that Greek word that is translated as “unawares,” and as “sudden,” it really means something that is “not seen,” or that does “not appear.” If we applied that understanding to 1Thessalonians 5:3, it would say, “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then unaware, or unseen, destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” It is an “unseen destruction,” or a spiritual judgment, and we know now that this is in view because that is the same kind of judgment God brought on the churches; it was a spiritual judgment, and it was nothing that could be seen with our physical eyes. It had to be “seen,” or understood, from the Bible. And that is the judgment that God has brought upon all the world beginning on May 21, 2011. There was no physical destruction that was outward and visible, but it was spiritual destruction as God shut the door of heaven, and He began to torment, or trouble, the inhabitants of the earth. And we see those results on a daily basis all around us in all the nations.
We also saw that this sudden, or unseen, destruction would come upon them “as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” The word “escape” is also found in that passage in Luke 21. Let me read it so we can see how it is used there. It says in Luke 21:34-36:
…and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
If you are able to escape, then you are able to stand. And to escape has to do with salvation: “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation…” To experience salvation is to not neglect it. Therefore it is to escape the wrath of God, with the judgment and snares that catch all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth. So that is what God is referring to when He says in 1Peter 5:3:
…then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
They will be caught in the wrath of God, and caught in that snare. But for God’s elect, the implication is that we will escape. Look at 1Thessalonians 5:4:
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
We are not in darkness. God has translated us out of the kingdom of darkness, Satan’s kingdom, and into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And because God has translated us by saving us, we are not in the dark. We are in the light. And just as with the five wise virgins, that means our lamps are lit. There is light, and the lamp identifies with the Word of God, the Bible: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.” So at the time of the end when God brought forth the information concerning “time and judgement” to His people, we went to the Bible, and because we have light in our souls (because Christ is the essence of light), we read the Scriptures, and we can see. The light permits spiritual sight. It allows the redeemed, born-again sinner to see what God is saying, and to perceive both “time and judgment.” We understand, as it says in Daniel 12:10: “
…the wise shall understand.”
But tragically, the unsaved remain in darkness. They are like the five foolish virgins, even if they call themselves Christians, and are faithful church attenders. One can do a whole lot with “outward appearance,” as far as getting involved with Christianity, but you can still be in the dark if you are not born again. It is an absolute necessity. There is no substitute. You can try to substitute a thousand things, and you may fool others, but you will not fool God because God accepts no substitute. There must be that new born-again soul for Him to adopt the sinner into His family, and that is only the work of Christ in salvation. If one is not an elect child of God, predestinated and chosen by God to obtain salvation, he will remain in darkness, and when he hears these things, he will go to the Bible (open his lamp), but he has no “oil,” as the Bible says; he has no Holy Spirit. Without oil, you cannot light the lamp, and the Bible will withhold its secrets; it will continue to conceal its mysteries; it will hide the deep truths from the unregenerate person who comes to the Bible and attempts to search out these things. Can you read in the dark? We all know that when we sit down to read, we must turn the light on. You have to read with the light on. If it is dark in the room, maybe you can get accustomed to the darkness a little bit, and you start to make out a few words, but it is extremely difficult, and it will probably give you a headache, and you cannot really get anywhere when you are trying to read in the dark. There needs to be light, and God must give that light, spiritually.
So as we look at this word “travail,” it is used in the context of Judgment Day, “the day of the Lord,” that comes as a thief in the night. And we would have to say that “the day of the Lord” began with the judgment on the corporate church. The judgment plan of God began to unfold when judgment began at the house of God. And let us ask this question: “Did Christ come as a thief in the night upon the churches?” And the answer is, “Yes.” And Christ did warn that He would come upon them as a thief, if we go to Revelation 3:3:
Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.
This was spoken to the “messenger” or “angel” of the church in Sardis, and remember that what was said to each of the churches in Revelation 2 and Revelation 3 was spoken to all the churches, as it says in Revelation 3:6: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” So Christ is speaking to the corporate church. Again, He said, “If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. “
And the churches were correct, ironically, when they said they did not know “the day or hour.” They did not know the day and hour of their own judgment, as the Lord pointed out in Jeremiah 8. He was speaking to Judah, historically, but spiritually He was also referring to the corporate church. It says in Jeremiah 8:7:
Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of JEHOVAH.
They did not know because they did not “watch.” And why would they watch when they insisted that one cannot know the time of the coming of Christ? Also, they were in great ignorance due to the way they approach the Bible and Bible study, and the way they interpret the Scriptures in their hermeneutic of using only the “plain, literal, grammatical, historical method of interpretation.” It guaranteed they would not know because the coming of Christ was hidden in the Bible, and the only way to learn of it was for it to be the proper time for the Spirit to reveal it; and then you had to use the proper tools to dig into the Scriptures, using the method God gave of comparing spiritual with spiritual; and making sure that all Scriptures harmonize.
But the churches do not do any of those things, and they were unable to properly “watch.” Christ did come upon them as a thief, and they were caught off guard. And it was fatal to them. It was a fatal judgment that the Lord Jesus Christ brought as He came unexpectedly, and they were caught “unawares.” It was an “unseen” destruction because the Spirit of God is invisible. And Satan is also a spirit being who is invisible, so when the Spirit of God departed from the churches, nobody saw it with their physical eyes. And when the spirit of Satan was loosed from the bottomless pit and entered into the churches, no one saw him with their physical eyes. The revealing of these things was on a spiritual level, which the churches’ hermeneutic prevented them from seeing. Therefore they were not watching, and Christ came as a thief upon them when He came to judge the churches.
It is also interesting when we think of Christ coming as a thief (“I will come on thee as a thief,”) that the Bible tells us six times that Jesus will come quickly, and three of those times regard the churches. We can read that statement in three places in Revelation 2 and 3 in Jesus’ address to the seven churches. For example, it says in Revelation 2:5:
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
Then it says in Revelation 2:16:
Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
That is, He would fight against them with the Word of God.
Then we read in Revelation 3:11:
Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
Jesus said three times, indicating the purpose of God, that He would come quickly. And of course we saw that statement in Revelation 3:3: “I will come on thee as a thief,” and that is what is meant by His coming quickly.
In the Bible, “to come quickly” means to come at the first available instant according to the timetable God has established in His program of “times and seasons.” In other words, Christ could not have come quickly in 1000 A. D. because He was still in the churches. But in 1988, it was the end of the church age upon the 13,000th year of earth’s history. And since the church age was over and its season had ended, Christ came quickly, immediately, and He removed their candlestick and took away the light of the Gospel from them, and He loosed Satan to enter into the churches. It was an invisible coming. It was an invisible judgment due to the nature of God who is Spirit, and it is typical of God to bring spiritual judgment. That was the judgment back in the Garden of Eden. It was the death of man’s spirit: God had said, “For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” and man did not die physically in that day, but he died spiritually in his soul.
As I said the expression “come quickly” is used only six times, and it is only used in the book of Revelation. The other three times are in Revelation 22. It says in Revelation 22:7:
Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.
It says in Revelation 22:12:
And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
And we find the last reference in Revelation 22:20:
He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
And these three references to “coming quickly” identity with Christ coming like a thief in the night (according to 1Thessalonians 5) on the world, just as He first came as a thief on the churches. And He came quickly like a thief in the night upon the world, which means He came as soon as possible in God’s timetable for things. And that means that as soon as the Great Tribulation period ended, He came. What does Matthew 24:29 declare? Let me read that, in Matthew 24:29-30:
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
He came quickly at the first available instant it was possible according to God’s “times and seasons.” And this was His coming to judge the entire world, and He came as a thief in the night.
Actually we understand a great many of these things. We already understood from Jeremiah 25 that when God speaks of the cup of His wrath (judgment), He said He would cause the city called by His name to drink first, which means that judgment would begin at the house of God. It started with the outward representatives of His kingdom on the earth, the corporate church. Then the same cup was given to the nations. First it was given to “Jerusalem,” and then the nations. The way it played out was that judgment would come first on the churches (Jerusalem), and then on the world. And that is what God has done.
We have long known that God’s judgment on the churches was spiritual in nature – nobody ever saw Satan take his seat in the temple, showing himself that he was God. Nobody saw the church buildings literally destroyed where there was not one stone left upon another, but that is the spiritual language of the Bible. Nobody saw the awful desolation and waste that came upon all the churches and congregations, but that was the case spiritually. The cup of God’s wrath was drunk in a spiritual way by the ungodly in the churches and congregations, and the true people of God were called out by the commandment of God, and we all came out. And the people that remained in the churches just shook their heads in amazement: “What is wrong with those people? We have a good congregation of believers, and we have a good pastor that preaches well. We have air conditioning in the summer, and central heating in the winter, and just a beautiful sanctuary, plus we have social gatherings, outings, and barbeques! Why would anyone say these things about our church?!” They were looking outwardly with their physical eyes. They are natural-minded, and that is how their minds work. They cannot see spiritually because they have no “oil” to light their lamps. It all seemed so ridiculous to them, and that is why they mocked. The natural-minded mock the things that they cannot understand.
But God’s true people “saw” these things spiritually. And another thing we understood is the judgment wherein Christ came as a thief in the night upon the churches, and He came quickly according to God’s timetable for things. Yes, it was a spiritual judgment, and it was revealed by the Bible. The only way anyone could know that the churches were under judgment was through the Bible, because the Bible said so. The Bible revealed the time. The Bible revealed the nature of it. The Bible revealed the action to take – that we must depart out and flee to the mountains. The Bible brought revelation of God’s righteous judgment, first against the churches. God had said to Daniel to seal up the Word until the time of the end, and at the time of the end these things began to come forth.
And we can see all the many similarities. Now with the judgment on the world and Christ coming as a thief in the night, it is a “replay,” as it were. The Bible is telling us the same story that was already told concerning the judgment of God on the churches. Christ warned them that if they did not watch, He would come as a thief, and they would not know the hour. And He would come quickly. And that was done. It is finished. Then the same judgment, or the same cup of wrath, came against the world, and the same spiritual nature of the judgment. And it is the same prolonged nature of judgment. There was 23 years of Great Tribulation and judgment on the churches. And now there are 23 inclusive years of tribulation (judgment) on the world. It is the same cup. It is just that on the literal last day of this prolonged judgment, it will take on a physical nature, as it must, and there will the literal, physical destruction of all the wicked. It must happen in order for God to fulfill all things. This world must pass away, and we must enter into a new creation.
But all these things are in view with this word “travail,” as it says: “
…then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.”
Everything in the Bible is important, but this is especially important since it has to do with the time of the end. That is what we are seeing when we look into this word “travail,” as we saw in Isaiah 13, Isaiah 21, Jeremiah 51, and 1Thessalonians 5. It is central to the whole plan of God as far as His end time judgment program.