Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #26 in Genesis 38, and I will read Genesis 38:29-30:
And it came to pass, as he drew back his hand, that, behold, his brother came out: and she said, How hast thou broken forth? this breach be upon thee: therefore his name was called Pharez. And afterward came out his brother, that had the scarlet thread upon his hand: and his name was called Zarah.
In our last study, we went to Nehemiah 6:1, and we saw that Nehemiah builded the wall, and there was no breach left therein.
I also mentioned the two fishing expeditions and the “nets” that the Gospels tell us about. For example, in Luke 5 we read of the first major fishing expedition in the New Testament. It says in Luke 5:3:
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.
Here, the ship is pointing to the New Testament corporate church. The first outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost established the church age, and the Spirit remained in the churches throughout the church age. So that means that Christ was in the midst of the ship, or the midst of the church, and the Holy Spirit taught through the Word, although it was not thoroughly – He did not guide into “all truth,” as was His plan for the time of the very end. Nonetheless, He taught the people out of the ship. 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.
So they enclosed a great multitude of fishes, and then we are told that their net broke. There is the “breach.” This was the problem with the church age. Not all that came into the churches were saved. The churches were the outward representation of the kingdom of God on the earth, although it was not the actual kingdom of God comprised only of the elect. Multitudes went into the churches. As we know, at the time of the end there were about two billion in the churches, according to estimates.
So great numbers of people (as typified by fish) entered into the churches and congregations, and yet there was a “breach” in that fish catching process. How are men caught? It is through the Gospel proclamation, but there was a breach, or a breaking forth, because of the manner in which many pastors and elders were teaching the Gospel to the people that resulted in large numbers of them never becoming saved. God sees the breach.
Over the course of the church age, the Lord Jesus was that “man” that stood in the breach, or the gap, which prevented God from destroying the churches. But that was only temporary because at the time of the end Christ came out of the midst of the churches, the breaches were immediately seen, and the judgment of God fell as judgment began at the house of God.
There was another major fishing expedition in the New Testament. I do not think there is a third one, but only these two. We read in John 21:5-11:
Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No. And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea. And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits,) dragging the net with fishes. As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread. Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken.
How can we describe that now, based on what we have learned as we look at the name “Pharez,” which means “breach?” If there is no breaking of the net, there is no breach. It is just like what it says in Nehemiah 6:1 about building the wall and there was no breach therein.
They caught a great catch of fish in a net, and the fish represent men. There was a great multitude of men coming into the kingdom of heaven, but there was no breach in the net, and none of the fish can escape. This was an indication that the Gospel was pure. The Gospel had been refined, but more than that it had to do with God’s end-time judgment program by ending the church age because there was sin in the “two,” as it says in Ezekiel 37:22. There was “sheth-ee',” which identifies with leprosy, and leprosy identifies with sin. There was sin in the “two,” or in the wheat and the tares, or with Jacob and Esau. There were the righteous therein, but there were also the wicked, and that caused the breach.
Once God ended the church age and commanded His people to come out, He began to send forth the Gospel outside of the churches and congregations, and this tended to “cleanse” the temple or sanctuary. God was dealing with individuals one-on-one, and the Gospel would come to an elect person, and God would save them, and He would add that person to the wall. He would be brought into the net that will not break. He is truly saved.
What about someone who heard the Gospel outside the churches and responded? He claimed salvation. Was that not just like the tares in the churches? No. Someone could be self-deceived into thinking he had been born again, but God did not gather that person. But when God saved an elect sinner, he was taken out of the “sea,” and gathered into the eternal net of the kingdom of heaven. Maybe a particular person “came close” in that he was clinging on, for whatever reason, but God never added him to the net. God never brought him into His kingdom, and therefore he was not among that great multitude. So this caused the “sanctuary” to be all righteous, and there was no Canaanite dwelling among them, so to speak. The temple was purified, and I am not referring to the earthly temple of the corporate church but to the heavenly temple of “new Jerusalem.” That is the city that was being built up all during the Latter Rain during the second part of the Great Tribulation. The earthly city of the corporate church at that point was full of corruption, and God had abandoned them. He judged them and poured out His wrath against them for their “breach,” but there was no breach in the net that did not break.
Let us go to the Old Testament book of Amos, and we will find another reference to this idea of the “breach.” It says in Amos 9:8:
Behold, the eyes of the Lord JEHOVAH are upon the sinful kingdom…
What is the sinful kingdom? It would be the corporate church, the outward representation of God’s kingdom to the world. But it had become a sinful kingdom because there was wickedness therein. There was wickedness in the ungodly who had entered in as Satan came against the churches and set up “synagogues of Satan.” So God’s eyes are upon that sinful kingdom. Then it says in Amos 9:8:
… and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith JEHOVAH.
Do you see the two houses? Once again, we see the house of God which is the corporate church, versus the eternal house “whose house are we,” which is the house that Christ was building over the course of earth’s history, and He completed that house during the Latter Rain, and He saved all the elect by May 21, 2011.
So God saw that sinful kingdom that He then destroyed, with the exception that He did not utterly destroy the house because He called His true people out, and He finished His house. Remember that 1Peter 2 speaks of the spiritual house of God in 1Peter 2:5:
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house…
These were the “living stones” that were added to that spiritual structure that would have no “breach.” There would be no sin within the “two,” and that is what is pointed out in Ezekiel 37:22:
And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:
There had been two kingdoms. The second reference to “two” is the word “sheth-ee',” and that word is found in Leviticus 13:48 where leprosy gets into the “warp,” and the warp is “sheth-ee'.” It gets into the “two.” So God is saying there will be no more “sheth-ee'” in His kingdom, but there would be one nation upon the mountains of Israel, and there would be one King. God was no longer calling His people within the churches, but He was calling them outside of the churches, and He was calling them directly into the eternal kingdom of God. That is the wonderful thing that is being referred to in Amos 9. It says in Amos 9:9-10:
For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.
God said, “all the sinners of my people” because they were the sinful kingdom that professed to be the people of God in the churches. Then it say sin Amos 9:11:
In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:
You see, there is the raising up of the tabernacle of David that had fallen, and then God would close up the breaches.
The word translated as “close up” in Amos 9:11 is also found in Isaiah 58 where it is translated as “repairer.” It says in Isaiah 58:10:
And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday:
By the way, the word “rise” is the same Hebrew word as “Zarah,” the brother of Pharez, who had the scarlet thread upon his hand.
The word “obscurity” is translated as “darkness” about seventy times. Then it says in Isaiah 58:11-12:
And JEHOVAH shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places…
Keep in mind what we just read in Amos 9:11:
In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:
The ruins would be similar to the waste places. Then it says in Isaiah 11:12:
…thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
The word “repairer” is the word translated as “close up” in Amos 9:11. This verse is pointing to God’s salvation program as He closed up the breaches and caused the net to be unbroken – there were no breaches or breaking forth from the net. The net had been restored to its proper condition, and it would catch the fish, and none of the fish could go out a breach, or escape from the eternal kingdom of heaven.
In other words, the net that did not break and had no breach spiritually represents those that truly became saved and received eternal life. They can never lose that eternal life. There is no deceit about them because they are “true men,” or “men without guile.” They do not have a deceitful heart because their hearts have been changed by God. This is the language of the “repairer of the breach” that the Bible tells us about.
Now I want to go to 2Kings 22, although I do not think we will have much time to get into this passage, but I want to lay it out a little bit. It says in 2Kings 22:1-7:
Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath. And he did that which was right in the sight of JEHOVAH, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left. And it came to pass in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, that the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the house of JEHOVAH, saying, Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may sum the silver which is brought into the house of JEHOVAH, which the keepers of the door have gathered of the people: And let them deliver it into the hand of the doers of the work, that have the oversight of the house of JEHOVAH: and let them give it to the doers of the work which is in the house of JEHOVAH, to repair the breaches of the house, Unto carpenters, and builders, and masons, and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house. Howbeit there was no reckoning made with them of the money that was delivered into their hand, because they dealt faithfully.
We do not have time to get into this, but we will do so in our next study, Lord willing. But this passage is telling us about good King Josiah, a very faithful king who began to reign at age eight, and now it was the eighteenth year of his reign, which would make him age 26, which is “2 x 13.” Right away our “antennas” go up to expect it to have something to do with the time of the end, spiritually. And what is God talking about in this passage? They are going to take the sum of the silver that was brought into the house of JEHOVAH that had been gathered of the people, and they were going to use the money to repair the breaches of the house.
There is a lot here. This is also connected in verse 8 to finding the book of the law when King Josiah was 26 years old, and that would fit in with the opening of the Scriptures at the time of the end.
But this is also speaking of the people who gave of their money, which they used to repair the breaches of the house. Do you see how that fits in with the Gospel? Do you see how that fits in with our time and how the people of God were moved to give their money to Family Radio during the second part of the Great Tribulation in the Latter Rain when a great multitude of people were saved? The giving of those funds was used for the sending forth of the Gospel, the purified form of God’s salvation message, and the great multitude became saved and entered into the kingdom of heaven. The wall was built with no breaches therein. The fish were gathered in the net with no breaches in the net – the net did not break.
Do you see how the support of God’s people in this passage spiritually fits in the with the idea of repairing the breaches of the house of God? There is also more involved concerning the giving of the silver by the people, and we will have to look more at that. Also, we will look more at the overall context. It really opens up this chapter from verse 1 through verse 14, and it is just a beautiful picture that has everything to do with the time of the end, beginning with the 13,000th year in 1988, and to this day.
Again, we will look at this more carefully and see what else we can learn when we get together in our next Bible study.