Last time, we were just looking at how to understand the Bible. This is the most important question. This has always been the most important thing, but it is just not that easy. Jesus spoke in parables and the Bible tells us, “Without a parable spake he not unto them.”
This should really give us an insight into how God wrote the Bible, and it does, but it has not always been that much noted or we have not understood this that well. The fact is that not only are those parables the Word of Christ, but the whole Bible is the Word of Christ; and so we have to look at the whole Bible in the same sense in order to find the deeper spiritual meaning.
Let us just think about the Bible. Let us look at it as a whole for a second. We know that we have the parables of Jesus. We know that He spoke in parables in the New Testament. We also know that the Bible contains a book called Proverbs that God moved Solomon to write. This is another way of saying “parable”; and when we read these proverbs, we find that these sayings are earthly stories that have spiritual meanings.
It is also interesting to note that the book of Proverbs is one entire book in the Bible. But there is not only the book of Proverbs; there is also the book of the Song of Solomon. When we read this, we find that this is about a love affair. It is hard to keep track of the characters, but this tells us what is going on between a Shulamite woman and King Solomon. Even the church and its theologians recognize that this is a poetic parable between Christ and His Bride, the Church, who they would understand to be the various congregations. Of course, the actual Church in view is the body of Christ, those who are God’s elect in every generation. But as to the whole book of the Song of Solomon, if we do not look at this and try to understand what God means in each verse, we are not going to understand anything of its purpose and why it is there.
We can also take a look at the book of Job. This statement is repeated in Job 29, but we read in Job 27:1:
Moreover Job continued his parable, and said,
What does this mean? Does this mean that Job was not a real character? No; it does not mean that. He was real. Everything that we read about him and his children and the catastrophes that they lived through, all of this really happened. They were true historical events; but in allowing those things to unfold and happen to this man, God was teaching spiritual truths, things that have spiritual meaning. Parabolic truths were coming forth.
So there are parts of Scripture that are true history, but they also teach us about the Gospel. We call these historical parables, and the whole book of Job is an historical parable.
Okay, so we find that God says this about Job. Then we find that the book of Proverbs is a book of parables and that the Song of Solomon is a love story between Christ and His Church. What about other parts of the Bible? What about the book of Ruth? We have been hearing a study on this book on the Family Radio Bible Study. The book of Ruth is kind of a strange story between a Moabitish woman named Ruth and a man named Boaz who becomes her husband. We have to ask what this has to do with anything. The book of Ruth takes on meaning only as we understand that Boaz is a type of Christ and that Ruth is a type of those whom Christ saves and enters into spiritual marriage with.
Here is a Bible quiz question. Who is the prophet of whom it was said, “Doth he not speak parables?” It was Ezekiel. You will find this statement in Ezekiel 20.
It is interesting when we read Ezekiel 1, because we get this strange image that some people have thought was describing a helicopter when it is actually just language pointing to the glory of God. This is because much of Ezekiel is written in a form that people do not understand.
When we read something in the Bible that we do not understand, this means that it is most likely a parable. We do not even understand Christ’s parables up until this very day. We still struggle with some of those parables. Some people even think that Jesus spoke in parables to make things easier to understand.
No way! Absolutely not! It is so much easier to tell someone plainly what you are saying rather than to unveil a story and say what Christ often said, which was, “The kingdom of heaven is like…,” and then not give all of the answers all of the time. And we know that Jesus did not do this on many occasions. He would not give all of the answers.
So it is very difficult to understand parables. The Bible even tells us, “Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself.” This is the truth. God hides Himself in parables and in these statements of the Bible.
We could also go through Daniel 7 and Daniel 8. Tell me, what are those rams and horns and what do they represent? They have something to do with the end of time, but they are parabolic statements.
What is the book of Revelation? What is the beast that comes up out of the sea? And much of the book of Revelation is written in this way.
Well, the theologians tell us that the book of Revelation is written in hyperbolic language. Ask them what they mean by this. What is that supposed to mean?
What they are really saying is that it is a parable, but they do not want to admit this. They do not want to admit what the Bible says, which is that Christ spoke in parables and that without a parable He did not speak; and that this is the nature of the whole Bible.
But hold it! There are some statements where Jesus speaks plainly. For example, we know that God says in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish.”
Many believe that this is very simple to understand; but is it? Then why has this spawned so many false gospels? People think that Christ died for everybody in the world. What comes as a result of this is the belief that all people have to do is to just accept Him.
They think that this is so easy and so simple, and yet there is a great deal of hidden truth in this simple statement in John 3:16, because when we do study parables, we find that the essence of a parable is hidden truth, and that, therefore, statements like John 3:16 qualify.
The whole Bible is like this. It is a minefield, spiritually. It is full of snares and traps and figures of speech and allegories; and yet the churches and congregations tell people not to listen to Family Radio because they spiritualize. Well, we accept this charge, because this is what God does.
Look at 1 Corinthians 10. We know that in 1 Corinthians 2, God says that we are to compare “spiritual things with spiritual.” This is how we come to truth. This statement alone tells us that each verse is spiritual; but in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, it says:
Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
We read here of “spiritual meat,” “spiritual drink,” and a “spiritual Rock,” and that this Rock followed them.
Okay, we need to compare “spiritual things with spiritual,” so tell me where to go in the Old Testament where I can read about the Israelites drinking spiritual drink and eating spiritual meat. And where do I find this spiritual Rock? Where do we find a rock in the Bible that had legs and that followed the Israelites around? Where is this? Where do we read this?
Well, we do not find this. We know that Moses struck a rock and that water came out, but what he struck was just a physical rock and what came out was physical water that satisfied the thirst of physical men. This was all physical. There was nothing spiritual about this.
What about the manna? True, it came from Heaven, but it had substance and they ate this manna that fell from Heaven. This was a very tangible thing. They could feel this in their hands. And the rock was a rock, and this rock never got up. From wherever it was that Moses struck this rock, it never got up and it never followed Israel on their journeys. This rock stayed put.
But God views this rock differently. He views this rock spiritually. He says that the water the came out of the rock was spiritual, the manna that fed them for those forty years was spiritual, and that Rock was Christ and it did follow Israel. And yet when we read this historical account in the book of Exodus, as well as some details that are found in the book of Numbers, we do not find any of this.
So could God again be telling us to listen up? Is He telling us that when we read in the Old Testament, we are to read it like Christ is speaking a parable? Maybe He is telling us to pay attention to what we are reading and think that maybe what we are reading represents something, like leaven represents doctrine, which is something that we read in the New Testament.
But are these verses enough for the churches? No; they say, “Well, that is not enough to prove anything.” The churches and congregations also say that Family Radio and, in particular, Mr. Camping just run away with allegorizing and that this ministry is so much into allegories. Well, we accept that charge; and allow me to accept this on behalf of Mr. Camping, because I am sure that he would; he understands how God wrote the Bible.
Let us look at Galatians 4. We read in Galatians 4:21:
Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
Jesus would say again and again and again, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,” and then He would proceed to tell a parable or something that related to the context; and He often said this after He said a parable.
So before God gets into explaining events that we can read in the book of Genesis, God is asking the question:
…do ye not hear the law?
What is not to hear? The Law tells me, “Thou shalt not kill.” It tells me, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” It tells me, “Thou shalt not steal.” It also tells me, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.” But there is more to the Law than this. The Bible indicates that the whole Bible is the Law. God is actually showing us this here.
So this is one thing that we learn here because He is now going to make reference to historical events between Abraham and Sarah and Hagar, but He is not going to give us the Ten Commandments here, and yet He is referring to “the law.” This tells us that these things that were happening in Genesis were considered by God to be the Law.
Then it says in Galatians 4:22-24:
For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
Remember that the Law was given in Sinai.
Then we read in Galatians 4:25-29:
For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth [or corresponds] to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
Again, why does God say that these things are an allegory, but when we read them in Genesis, we do not have any indication that this is the case? Before God begins discussing these events in Genesis, God does not tell us that what we are going to read about Abraham and about Sarah and about Sarah’s handmaid Hagar are an allegory. Remember also that Sarah gives Hagar to Abraham in order for a son to be born, who was Ishmael. This was because Sarah was concerned over the length of time before the promised son, who would be Isaac, would be born. But nowhere do we find that these things are referred to as an allegory in the Old Testament.
Keep in mind that the Old Testament stood for hundreds of years before God wrote the New Testament. We know that Moses died in 1407 B.C., so Genesis would have been written between 1447 B.C., when they came out of Egypt, and 1407 B.C., before his death. This means that these statements would have stood for over 1400 years. Nobody would have had the advantage to read what we find here in Galatians where God identified something as an allegory. Nobody would have known this.
So we know what the churches say. They only accept this when God Himself calls something an allegory. Yes, they know about the statements in 1 Corinthians 10 and they know that there are other statements like these. Grudgingly, they say that, in these few instances, we are permitted to understand spiritual things when we read these accounts in the Old Testament, but there are more than a few instances.
Well, Jesus spoke in parables in order to teach us what we learn in Galatians, and nobody understood this. He kept giving statements like this in whole sections of historical narratives. He is telling us about a spiritual rock and spiritual drink and spiritual food and that this whole narrative was referring to an allegory, and yet He is talking about whole chapters out of the book of Genesis.
If we went back to Genesis with a highlighter, we could highlight several chapters that are being referred to as an allegory. And the theologians would allow this. They would allow us to spiritualize and allegorize those passages. But, however, if we then went to the next chapter to do this same thing, they would say that we are not allowed to do this. They would claim that we were not permitted to allegorize, but God just did this in the previous chapters. They would say this is only permitted from a New Testament allowance.
We can see how ridiculous this is. We end up with these compartments of passages of Scripture where God Himself is showing us pointblank how to understand these things and what they mean, as He said, “For these are the two covenants,” and so forth. But because God does not do this in the following chapter, verse-by-verse, and He does not give us the overall general meaning, they say that we cannot do this and that it is wrong to look for a spiritual meaning.
This is very lazy. But also, what do we want from God? Do we want Him in the New Testament to explain every verse in every chapter in all of the Old Testament and in all of the Bible before we would finally allow the possibility that this is how He wrote the Bible?
Let us look at 1 Corinthians again. Turn to 1 Corinthians 9. This is a little different, because this is not relating to whole passages. This is not referring to whole chapters from the Old Testament where God sums things up and says that things are an allegory. This is just a simple passage. We are going to read of a Law, and this is a strange Law. God is going to comment on this by moving Paul to write this, and we know that everything that Paul wrote came directly from God, of course. It says in 1 Corinthians 9:7-9:
Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn…
Where is this written? This is written in Deuteronomy 25. We read in Deuteronomy 25:4:
Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.
This is practically word-for-word. This is the Law of God from the book of the Law, as most people recognize Deuteronomy as a book of the Law.
So in Deuteronomy, this is all that God said. Actually, in the previous verses He is talking about the number of stripes that cannot be exceeded. It was not allowed for them to go over forty. Of course, we know that this relates to eternal damnation and that God will not punish someone forevermore, as He points out that there is a limit to punishment. This means that no one will be in a place called “hell” forever and ever. This is the meaning of these verses that speak of stripes. Actually, the New Testament picks up on this. In passages where God is speaking of eternal punishment, He refers to “stripes.”
So we read of stripes before this verse in Deuteronomy 25:4. Then after this verse, He goes on to other subjects; but this verse basically stands alone as its own Law:
Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.
So this was a Law. Was this Law to be obeyed and followed? Yes; the Israelites were not to muzzle the ox when it was treading out the corn. This was a Law given for farmers, but why did God give this?
Well, this was good advice and good instruction for the farmer. They were to take good care of their animals. They relied on these animals. They were a source of their livelihood and for feeding their families. This was also good for the animal. They are part of God’s creation and God cares about all of His animals.
Is there any other reason? I am sure that there have been preachers who have preached on this and who have thought of some good applications to this.
Have any of you ever heard a message or a sermon like this? They are so slow, because they missed something. They will look at every angle, at every side of a verse. They look at the historical and at the moral aspects of a verse, but then they miss something. They miss the spiritual meaning.
Let us now go back to 1 Corinthians 9:9, which says:
For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn….
And then it asks:
…Doth God take care for oxen?…
Apparently, we should know the answer to this, should we not? What does God really care about? Why did He write the Bible? What is the point of this Book? What is its purpose? What is He really concerned about?
God is concerned about people. He is concerned about mankind. Again and again and again, we read of what He has done to glorify Himself, and He used mankind, His creature who is created in His image. He permitted man, in the sense that He removed His hand of restraint, to fall into sin in order to put all of this on a big platform and to make manifest to all principalities and powers the glory of His redemption plan. This is what the Bible is concerned about. It is concerned about redeeming sinners. It is concerned with God’s elect and with God’s salvation plan.
Whenever we are looking at the Bible and we do not find some aspect of this, if we do not find some element to this, if we are stuck just teaching some moral teachings and some good earthly tidbits, then we missed it. We missed it and God is letting us know this.
So God is the One who is asking this question of Himself:
…Doth God take care for oxen?…
Is He really concerned about the ox to the point that He would give a Law that we are not to muzzle the ox that treads out the corn?
The answer is: no; no, not on that level. Yes, He will take care of all of the animals. He is the One who feeds them on one level; but when it comes to the Bible and the precious space concerning the words of God, no, it is not unlimited. These words have a certain number. Every one of them is important and they are all bound in one Book.
So concerning the words of this Book, does God take care for oxen or any other animal to the extent that He would expend space and write about them to the exclusion of the Gospel and its concern for man?
It goes on to explain the point of this verse, as we read in 1 Corinthians 9:10:
Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope.
Then 1 Corinthians goes on to explain the teaching of this. The teaching is that those who minister in the Gospel are to be fed of the Gospel. We saw this all throughout the church age with pastors and with ministers. Their needs were taken care of, and this is the teaching. This is the element that relates to the Gospel’s teaching.
So in one single verse, we see a deeper meaning. Actually, again, we are rebuked a bit if we think that God just cares about oxen, which is like when Jesus rebuked His disciples and asked, “How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread?” What did God care about leaven? The Gospel, the Gospel, the Gospel, this is the important thing.
Let us go to Luke 18. We find that Jesus repeatedly would tell the disciples things and they would not understand. Many times, what Jesus spoke of had spiritual meanings; but sometimes, from what we can gather, His statements were rather direct. Even so, they still did not understand. For instance, it says in Luke 18:31-33:
Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again.
What Christ just said to His disciples was a very direct statement. We know that these things happened, and He told them of this in a very straightforward and direct manner. How could they get this wrong? Would not anybody be able to understand this, especially the true believers? Not only were these true believers, but they were those who were closest to Christ and spent the most time with Him during His ministry. Should they not have understood what He was saying?
Look at what this says in the next verse. We read in Luke 18:34:
And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.
Where they just stupid and ignorant disciples? Should they not have known better?
Well, come on. What do we realize? We realize that this was hidden from them, and so they could not have humanly possibly known. It would take God to open their understanding, even from a statement that was so straightforward. They could have even been wondering what the spiritual meaning of this was.
This is like what we had been thinking. We had been thinking like this also. Sometimes, we do not know. We ask ourselves, “Is this something that we should understand literally? Is this a spiritual thing?” We were going back and forth about the earthquake and the five months. We wondered if this was going to be a physical five-month period. We wondered how things were going to work out.
No matter what, we all have to take personal responsibility whenever we follow a teaching. After following a teaching, if anybody then turns around and points the finger at the teacher and claims that something was his fault, that it was his teaching that caused them to believe something that was incorrect, they should never do this.
The Bible tells us to check things out. We are to check everybody out, especially in our day and age. There is no excuse for not checking out everybody and anybody and anything that is said about the Bible, especially when we heard repeatedly from Mr. Camping, “Do not trust me. Trust the Bible.” We are to always check things out for ourselves. And God tells us and tells us this.
For example, we read in 1 John 4:1:
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
We are to “believe not every spirit.” This is how we start out. We are to be like the Berean. The Bible tells us that they “searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”
We should never just believe whatever someone says, because there are many false prophets. We are living in a day of great deception, a day in which every brother would “utterly supplant.”
We do not just trust anybody, whoever they are. If we do, this is our fault. This is our fault, so we should stop pointing the finger at anybody else. If you think that there was anything wrong, you just need to admit that it was you who made this mistake, personally and individually. This is how we have to approach things. We should never point the finger at anybody else.
So Jesus told the disciples in Luke 18 directly what was going to happen, and so let us now go to Luke 24. In Luke 24, this is after Christ has risen from the dead and shows Himself to His disciples. We read in Luke 24:44-48:
And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things.
So at this point in time, which is after the fact, Jesus opens their understanding so that they could understand what He had plainly told them. It was then that they understood the Scriptures.
Yes; we are after the fact. May 21 has come and gone. Obviously, there was not a great worldwide physical earthquake.
Since then, we have tried to understanding what happened. Did we have some misunderstanding about the timeline of history? No. Remember that just because this one element did not happen, this does not mean that everything that Family Radio taught, which is the most faithful ministry on earth, was wrong.
This does not mean that there is no Sunday Sabbath or that God does not save by election or that Christ did not die as the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and on and on and on. This also does not mean that the timeline of history is in error. Nobody can prove that the timeline of history is in error. They will say that the timeline is all wrong because this earthquake did not happen, but they cannot show anyone how it is wrong. The reason for this is because it is not wrong. The timeline can be proven to be very concise and accurate and it pointed to May 21 for Judgment Day. It pointed to the end of the great tribulation and the freeing of the captives, which we will look into.
The timeline is still correct, and so where are we right now? We are right on course. We are right on schedule. Nothing has changed except that we are here, but let us remember what we were telling people. We were telling them that on May 21, 2011, the door to Heaven would shut.
Just because we are here, now some people want to say no to this and that there is still salvation; but we all might want to check ourselves. We might have some pride involved in this if this is how we are thinking. We might also have some uncomfortableness involved with this, because we are still here. We are here and we have to deal with people, when we were thinking that we would be taken out of here. But nothing has changed that should have anyone think that the door to Heaven did not shut on May 21, exactly like we were saying.
The other thing is that God saved His people and that He saved all of them; and we were saying this, too. We said that all of the elect would become saved prior to May 21, and they were, and so now this is a matter of God feeding sheep, of taking care of them.
Why? Why does God want to do this? Why did He not just take us up? I do not know. Why is it that when He took the Israelites out of Egypt, He did not take them the fastest way to the land of Canaan? The land of the Philistines was near. They could have gone there very quickly. They could have been there within one week. But He did not take them that route. He took them to Succoth, which is the word for “booths” or “tabernacles.”
Actually, what does the Feast of Tabernacles commemorate or remember? It commemorates the coming out of Egypt, and it was then that the Israelites dwelt in booths; and they dwelt in booths for a long time.
But what are we here for? Well, we are waiting for October 21, which is the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths. We are just waiting.
We know that God delivered all of the Israelites out of Egypt. There were none left. They all came out and this was a great act of deliverance. It was complete and total, because they all came out. Then they all went the way in which God let them, which was towards the Red Sea. But even though that was a great deliverance, the enemy was still there. Pharaoh was still there and the Egyptians were still there; but after a little bit of time, Pharaoh and the Egyptians began to question what they had done by letting them go. At that point, they followed them and caught up to Israel, which made all things look hopeless for the Israelites.
So did God have a purpose in not taking the Israelites the quick way by the land of the Philistines? Yes; He did. What was the purpose? The purpose was always to glory Himself. It was to get Him honor and glory over Pharaoh and over the Egyptians. He was not done with them after the death of the firstborn at midnight. There was more to come, and then the Egyptians were finally destroyed in the Red Sea.
Now, here we are and we are headed towards October 21, 2011. This is the day. Nothing has changed here either. Nobody is coming up with another date.
We had a tract a couple of years back that said, “May 21, 2011 – The Rapture; October 21, 2011 – Judgment Day!” We took this tract to Sao Paulo, Brazil. We also wore T-shirts that a friend printed up for us with this message on them. But the people would see “October 21, 2011.” At this point, we realized that we did not want the people to concentrate on October 21, because the last day of salvation would be May 21, 2011. We did not want the people to think that they had five more months of salvation. Because of this, we removed “October 21, 2011” from the shirts and from the tracts.
From that point on, the emphasis from Family Radio and from EBible was May 21, 2011, but the date of October 21 has always been there; and October 21 is where we are headed. This is the day that we are looking towards. Then the whole question becomes how we approach this day.
Are we to be sorrowful and mournful? Are we to be cast down? This is not how God tells us in the Bible to approach this day. How did Jehoshaphat and his army approach the watchtower in the wilderness? They were told, “Ye shall not need to fight in this battle,” and God is telling us the same thing.
The battle is done. The victory is won. All of the elect are saved. And what did Jehoshaphat and his army do? They marched forth singing and praising God.
Let us turn to Nehemiah. Nehemiah 8 is an amazing chapter. It is preceded by Nehemiah 7:73, which says:
So the priests, and the Levites, and the porters, and the singers, and some of the people, and the Nethinims, and all Israel, dwelt in their cities; and when the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their cities.
A couple of chapters earlier, the wall of the temple was finished. It was finished in 52 days. The spiritual teaching of this is that the wall represents the wall of salvation.
Here in Nehemiah 8, there is a reading of the Bible or the Book of the Law. Ezra reads this and this is read beginning on the first day of the seventh month, which would be when there was the blowing of the trumpet of the ram’s horn announcing the Jubilee. This month was always the memorial of the Jubilee, and this month was different than every other month.
So Ezra read the Book of the Law, and we find in Ezra 8:4 that there are 13 men listed who are standing there. Then we read in Ezra 8:5:
And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up:
Then we read again in Ezra 8:7 of these 13 men, after which it says that they:
…caused the people to understand the law: and the people stood in their place.
Of course, this is significant. This is pointing to after 13,000 years of history, which was in 1988, when God would open the Scriptures. Then, suddenly, people could understand the Bible in many, many ways.
We did not learn things perfectly, as we have learned that we still had a couple of things to figure out. But God sealed up the Word “till the time of the end,” which was in 1988, and then He opened it.
So we read here that these 13 men are causing the people to understand the Law, which, figuratively, is a picture of God causing His people to understand the truth of the Bible for the first time near the end of the world.
Then it says in Nehemiah 8:8-9:
So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. And Nehemiah, which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto JEHOVAH your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law.
When were we to weep? At what point were the believers to weep? It was when we were carrying the Gospel. It was as we carried the Gospel.
This is like it says in Psalm 126:5-6:
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
We were to weep, and the Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes that there is a “time to weep, and a time…to mourn.” Jesus said in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are they that mourn.” But it also says in Ecclesiastes that there is “a time to laugh…and a time to dance.” There is a time to rejoice, and that time is now. And it is interesting that the Bible says in several places in relation to the Feast of Tabernacles that they were not to weep or cry.
So Nehemiah 8 is talking about the blowing of the trumpet of the ram’s horn on the first day of the seventh month, but look at Nehemiah 8:17. This is after they figure out that they are to keep this feast. We read in Nehemiah 8:17-18:
And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths: for since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so. And there was very great gladness. Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the law of God…
This is a picture of feeding sheep.
October 21 is the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles; and we see here that from the first day of the feast unto the last day of the feast, there was great gladness as they read the Word of God.
This is feeding sheep and it is also being fed as sheep. This is how we are to continue. This is how we are to proceed. This is how we are to approach this coming Day.
We do not have to weep anymore. We wept. We wept for our families and for our friends and we wept for the world, in a sense, as we brought the Gospel and prayed and cried to God to have mercy; but then it ended.
So the work of God is done, in this aspect of things. God has released all of the captives. He has set all of the prisoners free. All of God’s people are saved, and there is no need to bring the Gospel to the world in order that people become saved when God’s elect are all saved. Neither is there a need to bring the Gospel to the world to condemn the world when all of the world is now condemned.
All of this is because Judgment Day took place. It was the judgment of God that the door to Heaven shut, and so there is no need to bring the Gospel in this sense. This is the two-fold essence of the Gospel, which is grace and judgment. There is no need to do this any longer, but we do continue to share the Word of God in order to feed the sheep.
We are to do this for the purpose of God using His Word to open the eyes of those who maybe do not know that they have been set free. They still might be wrapped about with the chords of their own iniquity. Maybe they are still going after the same sins and not realizing something. Maybe if they just exercised a little will and a little prayer to God in beseeching Him for strength, they might be able to turn from sin. If they turn from these sins, they may find that they just pop off their wrists like those “green withs” that were wrapped about Samson. This would be because they are no longer bound.
God’s people are not bound anymore. They are all free. They are free from sin and Satan. They can now go free, because the prison door has been opened; but the problem is that some people are just very used to their prison.
Do we not see this in our day? This is like someone who has a life sentence in prison and who has maybe been there for sixty years. He only knows that cell, but they want to set him free. When he realizes this, it is like he does not know where to go or what to do.
Well, they need to go free, because God will show the child of God whom He has saved what they are to do.
Let us stop here with a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, we do thank You for Your grace and for Your mercy and for Your salvation plan. Father, we thank You that there are certain points where it becomes very obvious what truth is. We did not know about the earthquake, but now we do. The disciples did not know what You meant, but then they did. Father, we do pray that You would help us in our remaining days. We also pray that You would help us in our mindset and that You would turn again our captivity. We pray that we would begin to rejoice like the Jews as they came out of Egypt, or like the Jews as they came out of Babylon, or like a freed individual in the year of Jubilee, or like a prisoner who would experience sudden release. Father, this is a time of rejoicing and of praise and of thanksgiving. Help us to be thankful for others. There is even joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents. What great joy there must be there now. Father, we thank You, again, for Your Word and for this day. We ask that You would bless each one according to Your will. In Christ’s Name. Amen.