Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #28 in Genesis 38, and we will be reading 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.
Last time we went to 2Kings 22, and I want to turn there again. If you have been following along, you know we have been talking about the word “breach.” The name Pharez means “to breach,” or “to break forth.” In 2Kings 22, good King Josiah was 28 years old, which is “2 x 13,” and the number “13” directs us to the time of the end of the world which began in 1988, the 13,000th year of earth’s history.
King Josiah commanded Shaphan the scribe to go to Hilkiah the high priest and to get the sum of the silver that the keepers of the door had gathered from the people, and to give it into the hands of the doers of the work. It is a beautiful picture of all of God’s people being involved in the sending forth of the Gospel, and it is illustrated by their repairing the breaches of the house.
“To repair the breaches,” if you recall, was something we talked about a couple of studies ago regarding Nehemiah and the building of the wall. It says in Nehemiah 6:1:
Now it came to pass, when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and Geshem the Arabian, and the rest of our enemies, heard that I had builded the wall, and that there was no breach left therein; (though at that time I had not set up the doors upon the gates;)
Then it said in Nehemiah 6:15:
So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days.
We spent some time talking about God’s salvation program which the Bible relates to the building of a wall. I mentioned the number “52” in relation to the “acceptable year of the Lord,” because there are 52 weeks in a year.
We can also break down the number “52” to “4 x 13.” We also found the number “13” in relationship to Josiah. He repaired the breach of the house when he was 26 years old, or “2 x 13.” And that is not a coincidence. It points to the time when God would correct the errors of the church, and He would tear down their high places and cause the churches to fall. No longer would they be used to feed the flock, but He Himself would feed the flock on the “mountains of Israel” outside of the churches and congregations.
God did this by opening up the understanding of His people as they “compare spiritual with spiritual,” and the Holy Spirit teaches. So as His people compared spiritual with spiritual, using the concordance to follow God’s Word though the Bible, the Holy Spirit taught. Then following this methodology and harmonizing all conclusions with the rest of the Bible, it was actually the Holy Ghost who taught, and that is how Christ feeds His sheep upon the mountains of Israel. That was His command, was it not? He said in Matthew 24:16: “Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.” When this command was opened up in the Scriptures, Judaea, a type and picture of corporate church, had already become a “proverb and a byword.” We were to flee to the mountains, figuratively. Why? It was because that is where God would feed us. There was a famine in the land, and there was no Spirit of God to minister to the souls of anyone who remained in the churches. We were to get out of the churches, and we were to go to the Word of God where the Lord would faithfully feed His people. And He did repair the breaches of the house. Christ is the “repairer,” and He is the one who stands in the gap to ward off the wrath of God from His people.
So that is all in view, and it is really a wonderful Gospel picture. King Josiah would point to Christ. There was the scribe, the high priest, the people who gave (funds) to the work, the doers of the work, and the keepers of the door who gathered of the people. It was a concentrated, combined effort that resulted in the breaches, or gaps, being repaired, representing the doctrinal errors being corrected, and there was great salvation as a result. A great multitude became saved. After 13,000 years, in September 1994 God began to send forth the Latter Rain, a second outpouring of the Holy Spirit, with a purified form of the Gospel.
It was not the false “free will gospel” that God chose to send forth, but it was an abundance of truthful information. It was not even the “election Gospel” of the Reformed churches because they had added an underhanded aspect to teaching the truth of election which was, perhaps, even more deceptive than the doctrine of the free-will pastors. They spoke of election, which is truth, but then they slipped in a work of man: “But you have to believe.” No. The Gospel that God chose to “keep Sabbath” was a Gospel that meant that man could contribute no work of any kind to become saved. This truth was opened up to the minds of the people of God that we are not justified by the works of the Law, and “faith” is a work. God revealed to us that it was by the faith of Christ, the work and faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, wherein God gets all the glory. It was really a beautiful proclamation of the true Gospel that went out into the world, and God caused it to accomplish the purpose He had sent it forth to do.
Let us go again to 2Kings 22:8-17:
And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of JEHOVAH. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. And Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, Thy servants have gathered the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of them that do the work, that have the oversight of the house of JEHOVAH. And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Michaiah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asahiah a servant of the king's, saying, Go ye, enquire of JEHOVAH for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found: for great is the wrath of JEHOVAH that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us. So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asahiah, went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college;) and they communed with her. And she said unto them, Thus saith JEHOVAH God of Israel, Tell the man that sent you to me, Thus saith JEHOVAH, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read: Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched.
Again, we see that Josiah was aged 26, which is “2 x13,” and the number “13” identifies with the time of the end. They found the book of the Law. What were the previous kings and high priests and the spiritual leaders of Judah doing? How could they have “lost” the book of the Law. It could only be due to neglect. They dismissed it, and they obviously were not consulting the Word of God. No wonder Judah was in such a mess, and no wonder the people of Judah were involved in idolatry and going after false gods. Their spiritual leaders were not teaching from the Bible faithfully, and they could not have done so because they had “lost” it.
I guess we can understand that because it is a pretty accurate description of churches that teach things out of their own minds without consulting the Word of God, at least not in the manner that God would have them to do by listening to the Spirit through the process of “comparing spiritual with spiritual,” and the Holy Spirit teaching. But they were too busy with their confessions, creeds, and their preferred theologian and his commentaries, and they would teach and preach from those things.
The Jews were probably too occupied with the writings of their fathers and the traditions that were handed down, wherein they probably quoted and made commentaries on the Old Testament scriptures, and that became their “gospel.” And that was very similar to the corruption that would later overtake the churches and congregations. Do not forget that in the early centuries of the church age those in the churches did not want the people to have a copy of the Bible. They kept the Bible from the people. They hid it, just like this Bible was “lost” in this Old Testament account.
After 13,000 years, God is basically indicating that now would come forth the truth, and the hidden things of God would be revealed. There were things that man could not uncover even when the Bible was out in the open, and the Bible itself was not “lost.” And yet the teachings of the Bible were sealed up and hidden from the eyes of men. But when we reached the time of the end, the Lord unsealed the book, and the truth came out.
Now the congregation is hearing the truth as if it were a whole new book, and God does use that kind of language in Hebrews 8 where He refers to the “first covenant” and the “second covenant,” which would be the Old Testament and the New Testament; and He said, “finding fault with them,” and He would establish a “new covenant.” And the problem was with man and his “thick skull” in not understanding spiritual things, but the “new covenant” is all the mass of information that He has been bringing forth (and continues to bring forth) since we reached the end stage of earth’s history, as the Lord had said to Daniel to seal up the words until the time of the end. It says in Daniel 12:4:
But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
That is exactly what has happened, and that is what is being shown to us in this passage in 1Kings 22. We know that once Josiah heard the book of the Law it hit him extremely hard as he realized all the errors that Judah had been involved with, or that the churches and congregations had been involved with. He realized that the burning of incense to other gods, and their idols and high places were an abomination to God. Then he went about to cleanse the land.
Josiah’s death is a picture of the end of the church age, as his death age of 39 is “3 x 13.” He went about to cleanse the land beginning 13 years before his death because it started after they found the book of the Law when Josiah was 26. How can we understand that? God is simply taking the opportunity to paint another spiritual picture, the picture of Christ moving His people at the time of the end to “cleanse the sanctuary” after the 2,300 evening mornings. It says in Daniel 8:14:
Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed…
It was time to bring forth this pure form of the Gospel as revelation came forth from the Bible at the time of the end, and to rid out all the idolatry of the churches as God shined the light on the darkness within the congregations. He showed His true people that the churches were under judgment, and the church age was over. God showed us that He was no longer there. The Spirit of God had left, and Satan’s spirit had entered in, and God called His people out of the churches and congregations, ridding us of all the idolatry, just as Josiah had done. So by linking the age of Josiah to this point in time, we can see that God was painting a picture of events that would transpire after the end of the church age in the time of the Great Tribulation.
We will stop here. We did not get a chance to go back and talk about Zarah yet, so we will have to do one more study in Genesis 38. Lord willing, we will finish chapter 38 when we get together in our next Bible study.