Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #16 of Genesis, chapter 7 and we are going to read Genesis 7:13-16:

In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and JEHOVAH shut him in.

I will stop reading there. In our last study we had gone to Matthew, chapter 25 and we were going through the parable of the ten virgins – five that were wise and five that were foolish. We had quickly gone through each verse all the way to verse 10. In this parable the “wise” represent the saved that have the Spirit of Christ, who is Wisdom, and the “foolish” represent professed Christians that lack the Spirit of Christ because they lack “oil” and, yet, both parties have lamps. The professed Christians also have the resource of the Word of God, the Bible.

When the cry comes at “midnight” that the bridegroom is coming, they all go out and they all turn to their lamps. The “wise” have oil and their lamps light, which indicates that they can “see” and they will have spiritual knowledge. The fact that they have oil in their lamps ties in with what it says in Daniel, chapter 12 about the “wise” understanding, but none of the “foolish” understand. It also ties in with the statement in Ecclesiastes 8:5:

…and a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment.

It also ties in with Proverbs 28:5:

Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek JEHOVAH understand all things.

The wise have understanding because they have “oil,” the Holy Spirit, and when you put oil in a lamp the lamp lights. If the Holy Spirit is in an individual that turns to God’s Word, the lamp, then the Holy Spirit enlightens the Scriptures and he is able to see. This is why it says in 1Thessalonians 5:3-4:

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.

Who is in darkness? The fools are in darkness. They are the five foolish virgins that lack oil and they are in darkness because they have no oil to light their lamps, but that is not the case with the wise. The wise understand and the coming of Christ does not overtake them as a thief. He comes as a thief in the night for the unsaved, the foolish, because they have no ability to “see” in the (spiritual) darkness. That is not the situation with the true people of God. Since this parable in Matthew 25 is associated with the coming of the bridegroom (Christ,) the clear implication is that God’s people will have the advantage of the “oil” or Holy Spirit that will enlighten their lamps and, therefore, they will understand: “a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment.” They will see the Biblical timeline of history and God’s program of times and seasons. They will be able to understand the time of the Great Tribulation of 23 years and they will understand that immediately after that Tribulation is Judgment Day, when the sun is darkened. They will have knowledge of these things because they have the Holy Spirit. That is really what it comes down to when we consider why one person possesses understanding of things concerning the end and another person does not. It is because of the “oil” or the Holy Spirit.

Let us go on reading in Matthew 25:10:

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came…

The wise had told the foolish to go to “them that buy and sell” to get their own “oil” and that is exactly what the true believers would have said to someone that wanted to know how one can see these things in the Bible. Yes, you could have shown them the verses but, ultimately, it would require that one has the Holy Spirit to enlighten, so we would have directed people to “them,” the Triune God of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. However, these foolish virgins went to their pastors, elders and deacons and they said, “We are hearing things about Christ coming and Judgment Day beginning May 21, 2011, but what do you think?” They were looking for “oil,” but they were turning to the wrong source – they were going to their church leaders. They were told, “Well, the Bible says that no man knows the day or the hour, so forget about it because no one can possibly know.”

So, while they went to buy they got caught up in discussions with the leaders of their churches which really kept them from going to the true “merchantman,” who is God. The bridegroom came – the time elapsed and it was too late. Remember that it said in Zephaniah, chapter 2 that the time to go to God was “before the day come” and “before the fierce anger of God.” That was the time to seek the Lord, but now that time has expired and Christ came as Judge. When did He come? He came on May 21, 2011, exactly as the Bible had indicated. He came as the Judge of the world.

Someone might say, “Are you crazy? You are out of your mind – nothing happened on that day. It was business as usual. There was no change. The world was not destroyed.” Yes, but at that point He came not to destroy the world, but to judge it with a spiritual judgment in a similar way to when He came to judge the churches at the beginning of the judgment that began at the house of God on May 21, 1988. Did Christ come as Judge? Yes. Did the people in the churches see Him come in judgment? No. Did Christ come as a thief for them? Yes, He took away their candlestick. He removed the light of the Gospel from them and ended His salvation program within the congregations and He turned the entire corporate church body over to Satan. It was an awful and terrible judgment, but they did not see it. That is because He is an outstanding “thief” in the sense that no one was even aware they had been robbed and that all their blessings were taken away by God. He did that to the churches and, yet, the churches continued to operate and go about their business for the entire 23 years of the Great Tribulation, denying it all. “Oh, no, God has not judged us. The Holy Spirit has not left us. We are the same (corporate) church today as we have always been.” But, of course, during those 23 years they continued to go further and further from the Law of God, doing outlandish things like “falling over backwards” and “holy laughter” and homosexuals being ordained as pastors and elders and women taking leadership as pastors, and so forth. There was a tremendous falling away, like never before, during those 23 years because the “vultures” were in charge and God was not there to drive them off and the vultures proceeded to feed on the dead carcass that had no head (Christ) and they became a stinking corpse that lacked the power of God to defend them. That was the terrible judgment of God against them.

Likewise, on May 21, 2011 God abandoned the world insofar as salvation. He shut the door of heaven, ended His salvation program and He abandoned the world by lifting His hand of restraint off the hearts of men. The Spirit of God had kept man somewhat “sane” in relationship to the commandments of God, but now even that basic morality that had kept the world going was declining more and more. Now mankind was finding it even more difficult to distinguish between right and wrong and good and bad; they could not see the right way because God’s Spirit was not restraining them and holding them back from doing greater evil. Since the judgment of God came on the date of May 21, 2011 we are seeing the world sinking into greater darkness and losing sight of even basic morality. This is still the early stages of judgment, but already mankind thinks it is proper for men to marry men and women to marry women and there is all the focus on being transgender, to the point that we cannot even decide if a bathroom is for one sex or the other. It is just painful to watch. With abortion so prevalent, the world is losing sight of all decency as they become involved in the buying and selling of body parts. It is just “horror beyond belief” and everyone should be shocked at that and they should say, “How can anything like this happen? May it never happen again!” And, yet, there was some uproar for a little while, but now it has quieted down and they continue that business. We can be sure that it will only get worse over the course of the prolonged judgment of the world until God brings it all to an end with the literal, physical destruction of this world and universe, but at this time it is a spiritual judgment.

Again, it says in Matthew 25:10:

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage…

The Greek word translated as “went in” is Strong’s #1525 and it is a word that is also translated as “entered.” We saw that word back in Genesis 7, verse 13 where Noah and his family entered into the ark. It says in Matthew 24:37:

But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

That is the word translated as “went in” in Matthew 25, verse 10. So the wise virgins “entered in” with Him to the marriage, just like Noah’s wife, the sons and their wives entered in with Noah into the ark. They entered in and then what does God tell us in Genesis 7, verse 16? He said, “And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and JEHOVAH shut him in.” We see the same order of events in the parable of the ten virgins. They that were ready went in with Him (the Lord Jesus Christ) to the marriage and then it says in Matthew 25:10:

…and the door was shut.

This is exactly parallel to the historical situation in regard to Noah’s ark. They entered in and God shut him in. The rain began to fall. Here in Matthew, chapter 25 Christ is speaking a parable about the time the bridegroom coming and about the wise and foolish virgins and we can see how it all related to the worldwide proclamation of the approaching Day of Judgment as the Bible brought forth that information and God told the world the specific day that judgment would begin. It was exactly as God had told Noah the specific day the flood would begin: “And yet seven days.” It was “the seventeenth day of the second month” of Noah’s 600th year. The date May 21, 2011 was opened up through the Bible and that date had the underlying Hebrew calendar date of “the seventeenth day of the second month,” the date that tied 7,000 years earlier to the date of the flood. God’s people were telling everyone and anyone that would listen that this selfsame day 7,000 years later was Judgment Day. It was foretold. God’s people had oil in their lamps and they could see these things that other people could not see and God did not come as a thief for His people – they were ready and waiting. When the time came, all that were to be saved had become saved.

Again, in the spiritual realm you cannot see when a person enters into the kingdom of heaven. You cannot see when a person becomes saved, but God came and all His elect had become saved and it was as though they had all entered into the marriage, the safety of the kingdom of God. But this marriage also has a “marriage feast” and the Bible goes into some detail about that in an interesting way in the Book of Revelation, where it speaks of the “marriage feast” as a time of judgment and wrath. One way that God views the “marriage supper of the Lamb” is as Judgment Day. As the elect go into the marriage, the door was shut. God shut the door. In the case of Noah, “JEHOVAH shut him in.” The people on the ark did not shut the door. Noah did not shut the door. His wife did not shut the door. Their sons did not shut the door. Their sons’ wives did not shut the door. None of the animals shut the door. JEHOVAH shut him in. To the people outside in the world that would later come to the ark when the rain continued falling and they saw the shut door, they might have thought that Noah or one of his family shut the door. They may have cried, “Noah! Noah! Let us in. Open the door!” And, yet, Noah did not shut that door and none of his family shut the door. God shut it.

The Bible is very clear on this particular point: “So he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.” In Matthew 25 the bridegroom shut the door. The door was shut and although we are not told that, specifically, the bridegroom came and he brought the wise virgins in with him and certainly the virgins would not have been so bold as to shut the door – it was the bridegroom that shut the door. It is the same idea. God shuts the door.

The people of God have been despised and vilified in our time because we tell others and we testify that the season has changed and God has shut the door. We are just doorkeepers. In the day of salvation when the Gospel was going forth in a wonderful way we told people, “Go to God because the door is wide open like it has never been before in all history. It is a glorious time of salvation. Go to God. God has opened the door of heaven.” That was our privilege to share and it was a blessing to be able to do so. We truly rejoiced in telling people about the opportunity to seek the Lord while He may be found because the door of heaven was open. Now we are still doorkeepers. When God had the door open, we would stand outside and direct people inside. Now God has shut the door and we still stand by the door, which is Christ and His Word, the Bible, and we are still caretakers of the Bible, so now we have to tell people the door is shut because that is our duty to speak the truth and to be as faithful as possible to what the Bible declares. We tell people, “I am sorry, but the time is past. The period in which the door is open is now over and God has shut the door and when He shuts, no man can open. We cannot open the door. God tells us in Luke 13:24-25:

Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door…

It is not the lowly servant and child of God that shut the door. It is not the place of the doorkeeper to rise up and “shut to the door,” but it is the Master of the house – it is God Himself that rises and has the power and authority to do it, according to His plan. He rises and shuts to the door. When He shuts the door, it goes on to say in Luke 13:25:

…and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:

God shuts and no man can open. Of course, in the Day of Judgment when God shuts the door, it is final. It is final – there are no more “seasons” or periods of rain. There is no more fruit to be brought in. God had three programs of rain: the early righteous rain; the early rain; and the Latter Rain. Christ was the fruit of the early righteous rain. The firstfruits were the product of the early rain during the church age. Then there was the end time fruit of the great multitude during the Latter Rain. There were three seasons of rain and fruit. Now there is no more rain and no more fruit. There is no more outpouring of the Spirit unto salvation in God’s program of things. The only thing left is the final judgment of mankind and that is where we are presently as we are going through the Day of Judgment, like Noah and his family went through the flood.