We are looking at parables that we began to look at a couple of weeks ago. There is a reason for why we wanted to look at this. This is because of the day that we are in. For the period that we are in, it is very important that we understand the Bible. Therefore, we have to know and we have to understand that the Bible was written in parabolic form.
It is amazing what God is actually revealing to us at this time in His Word. He is making very clear and plain exactly where we are, exactly the reason why we are here, and exactly what He expects of us in the coming days.
Let us begin again by thinking of these parables. We know that Christ spoke in parables. The Bible tells us, “Without a parable spake he not unto them.” This statement is really for the purpose of getting us to think.
Of course, many theologians do realize that Jesus did speak in parables. They then decide to find all of the parables of Jesus. They look in the four Gospels and make a list of what they find. They can then put them in categories and qualify them and say, “Here are the parables of Jesus.”
We know that without a parable, He did not speak; and, right away, they have missed it. Right away, they are off course. They do not understand that He is the Word of God. He said, “In the volume of the book it is written of me.”
We also read in John 1:1:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And it says in John 1:14:
And the Word was made flesh…
This is speaking of Jesus. He is the Word made flesh and He speaks in parables.
When Christ said, “Without a parable spake he not unto them,” was He just teaching us that we have to be on the lookout for His speaking in parables? We know this, but He was also teaching us the nature of the Bible, the whole Bible. You have to know this or you are never going to understand the Bible. You have to know that you need to look for deeper spiritual meanings.
Some people do realize that Christ spoke in parables. They also realize that the Old Testament has parabolic language. We find the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament, and another word for “proverb” is “parable.”
In the book of Job, we find this statement in Job 27:1:
Moreover Job continued his parable…
It was said of Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 20:49:
…Doth he not speak parables?
Baalim gave a parable in the book of Numbers, as God moved him to speak. We read in Numbers 23, “And the LORD put a word in Balaam's mouth...and he took up his parable.”
God speaks of an historical account in the book of Genesis that He refers to as an “allegory” in Galatians 4:24, where He says in reference to this:
Which things are an allegory…
We read of “figures” in the book of Hebrews where it talks about the tabernacle. It says in Hebrews 9:24:
For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true…
Hebrews 10 speaks of “a shadow.” It says in Hebrews 10:1:
For the law having a shadow of good things to come…
We could go on and on and on. For example, 1 Corinthians 10 records the historical events of the passing through the Red Sea, the manna from Heaven, the water out of the rock, and God says that it was “spiritual meat” and “spiritual drink” and that they “drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”
It is interesting that we do not find this explanation at all in the Old Testament. Actually, when we look at the Old Testament and then see that God gave the sacrificial system, we have to wonder what that was about. This is all through the Old Testament. What are all of those sacrifices?
All of those sacrifices are types and figures of Christ being slain. They took an innocent animal, they offered it up according to God’s specifications, and what was pictured was a tableau or a living parable.
What was the tabernacle a picture of? What about the temple? How about the priests? What were the priests a picture of? Why did they do service? Why was it against the Law for a priest to wear a certain kind of clothing that made him sweat when he went into the temple?
It was because sweat has to do with work and a priest was to do no work. He was to do no work of any kind, which pictured the salvation that we have in Christ where we can do no work.
Why was there a Sabbath Day? After God created the world in six days, why did He rest on the seventh day? The Bible tells us that this was a figure of rest in Christ.
What about the sun, moon, and stars? What about the grass, the trees, and the seas?
We read about all of these things and God likens them in many places to other truths, and then we learn what they mean.
For example, Jesus said, “I am the door,” and He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” So when we find a passage where there is a door in the Bible, like the door of the ark, and we learn that God shuts the door, God expects us to put these two things together. This is the nature of the Bible.
Some people realize a lot of this, but due to a certain amount of desperate fear, and I do not know what they are fearing, but they would claim that ignoring this is to prevent theological studies and teachings like those that are found on Family Radio. But Family Radio is following the methodology of the Bible, the methodology that Christ has established, which is “comparing spiritual things with spiritual” where you look for the deeper spiritual meaning.
Let us take what many churches say. They say that if we read the Bible and find a plain, literal statement, we are to seek no other meaning. If a statement is very clear, very straightforward, and very plain, this means that, therefore, we are to just go with it. But if we do this, do you know where we are going? We are going away from God. We are actually going way, far away, from God.
Let us go to Luke 17. Christ is actually going to show us this in an historical parable, which would be a true and historical event. Jesus also spoke of parables where the people and the figures that He would use did not actually happen in history. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, for example, there was no literal rich man who went into a place of torment. There was no literal beggar named Lazarus. This was a parable. But in the case of Luke 17, this is true history.
I will read a few verses in Luke 17. We read in Luke 17:11-19:
And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.
We will stop reading there.
Does this strike you as being strange the way that this strikes me as being strange? There are ten lepers who encounter Christ, which was a blessing for them. It was a wonderful thing to encounter Christ when you were a leper, because Jesus was someone who had the power to heal, the power we know to do mighty miracles.
Jesus is just passing through the midst of Samaria and Galilee and He enters a certain village where ten men met Him who were lepers. It says that they “stood afar off.” This was because of their leprosy. They were outcasts. They could not participate in the normal happenings in their village. Actually, they had to stay afar off according to the Law of God. People were fine with this because they did not want lepers too close to them; and so these lepers were standing afar off and they were in their misery.
We can just imagine this. To have a disease in our day is hard; but in that day, with no medical help available, what kind of treatment could they have had? The treatment was that they were to get out of the city and to stay on the outskirts of the city. These men would certainly have been beggars, so maybe by people’s generosity and their pity these men could get by day-by-day. All the while, this disease was continuing in their bodies.
The way that this disease worked was that their digits would fall off. Their noses could be rotting. We do not know how long these men had this disease, but these are the types of things that happen with the disease of leprosy. And so it would be a wonderful day if they were to meet Christ and they were not going to let this opportunity pass by.
We read again in verse 13, Luke 17:13:
And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
They knew who He was and they knew what He could do.
This is just like blind Bartimaeus when he heard that Jesus was passing by and cried out, “Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.” Of course, Christ heard him; but when Jesus was just acting as if He had not heard him and continued on, then some said to Bartimaeus to hold his peace. But did Bartimaeus hold his peace? No; he cried all the more.
I guess we would have to be a blind person to know exactly what it would have been like to have been on the side of a highway somewhere near Jericho. You are there begging and you do not even know who is coming and who is going. Anybody could abuse you. This is your condition and maybe has been for a long time.
What would have been your future hope if you were a blind man or a leper in those days? You would have had no future hope. All you could do was to just exist and to try to continue on.
So when Christ passed by, you would not have let this opportunity go if you were in pain or if you were in misery. Jesus found the people who were. He intentionally did this. He knew all along whom they were and that this was His plan.
Then we read again in verse 14, Luke 17:14:
And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests…
This was a command. He finds the lepers. He tells them to go and show themselves to the priests, but He had not healed them yet; and so, already, there was a little bit of a test.
I might have said, “Lord, what about my leprosy? Lord, have mercy! Lord, cleanse me!” But we do not read that Christ got into this type of discussion at all. He just commanded them to go to the priest.
Then Luke 17:14 says:
…And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.
They were obedient to what Christ said; and there are always blessings associated with obedience. This is what the Bible teaches us. As they went, they were healed.
How would this have happened? I do not know. We can ask how the same thing happened to Naaman the Syrian who was a leper. He was told to go and wash himself in the Jordan River seven times. Of course, at first, he thought that this was a joke; but after being persuaded, he went. Then it says that “his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.” It was as if his skin was like a little baby’s again. His skin became very clean and very normal.
For all of us who have never had these kinds of problems, this is just something that we take for granted. We have had skin that has been fine all of our lives.
So these men are walking along and they would have noticed if the leprosy of their fingers was going away. I would not be surprised and I am sure that this happened. If they had missing digits, the digits most likely returned.
This would be just like when Peter cut off the ear of one of the high priest servants and Christ put it right back on. Christ is capable of doing this, too.
So for these men and for whatever damage that leprosy had done to them, it was healed. Their bodies and their skin returned to normal and they were cleansed.
It then goes on to say in verse 15, Luke 17:15:
And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back…
This is saying that he went back to Jesus. Then it says in Luke 17:15-16:
…and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.
There were how many lepers? There were ten. One, at least, we know was a Samaritan. The other nine were probably not. They could have been Jews. But all ten were cleansed.
Do you think that all ten were happy? All of them were probably walking on cloud nine, just like this one who was a Samaritan. He saw that he was healed and he just could not resist. He just turned right around, went back to Jesus, fell down on his face at Christ’s feet, and thanked Him, “Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Lord. You have healed me from this leprosy.”
This does not mean that the other nine were not thankful that they were cleansed. They were probably joyous and just as thankful, but what did Jesus tell all ten to do? What did He tell them?
We read in verse 14, Luke 17:14:
And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests…
Actually, Jesus goes on to say in Luke 17:17:
And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?
Where were they? Where did they go? This is obvious, is it not? It is pretty obvious where they went. They went to the priest, because Jesus told them to go to the priest. They were definitely being obedient, because He told them plainly, literally, and straightforwardly. This was the plain, literal meaning of the text, and He is the Word of God. He told them, without question, “Go show yourselves to the priest.”
As they went, they experienced an incredible blessing; and so they were not going to disobey the Word of Christ. They were not going to try to read anything into what He was saying. They would just let that Samaritan go back. They knew what He had said and they believed that they had to follow the Word of God as stated, explicitly. They were not going to look for anything deeper, not like that Samaritan. After all, what could they expect from a crazy Samaritan? They would just let him go back.
From their perspective, they were obeying God, they were glorifying God, and they were following the Word of God to the letter. But from God’s perspective of the very same thing, we have Jesus ask the question:
…Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?
Why did He ask this? Did He not know? Yes; He knew, but He wants us to think. He wants us to consider this. He wants us again to realize the nature of the Word of God, the Bible, and that we had better watch out when we read something in the Bible and start to go after the literal meaning of it.
A couple of weeks ago, we looked at the leaven in Matthew 16. Let us go back there real quick. We read in Matthew 16:6-7:
Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread.
Leaven has to do with bread, and so this makes sense. This is the reaction of the logical and natural mind. We all have minds and we are all a part of this world and we think this way. The disciples were true believers, but they still thought this way, too.
Then we read in Matthew 16:8-12:
Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
Notice that Jesus did not give them this answer. He did not tell them, “Look; when I told you to beware of their leaven, I was referring to their doctrine.” He did not say this. He just said, “O ye of little faith. Do ye not yet understand?” This made them start to think of other places where bread was in view. Christ reminded them of the breaking of bread and the feeding of thousands.
The disciples were then able to discern. They were able to understand that they needed to look at the spiritual meaning and that this had to do with doctrine. This was true, but we can see the danger.
Jesus, just in casual conversation, warns them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and the disciples quickly jump to a conclusion; but they were wrong because it was a natural connection that they had made.
Likewise, Jesus tells ten lepers, “Go to the priests.” As they go, they are cleansed. Then they make a natural connection. They associate the two with obeying Christ and with what happened to them in their cleansing. There was no way that they were going to run back to Jesus. Even though the nine might have thought about this, they were not going to do it.
So God has given us this passage. Even though this was not an actual parable, this tells us the nature of the Bible and its historical parables.
What does leprosy represent? I do not think there is a verse that says this, but we know, as we look at these verses and see how Christ would heal and cleanse lepers, that leprosy represents sin. There are verses that say, “But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins,” and then He would heal an individual. There are verses like this. But leprosy does represent sin.
Who does a priest represent? A priest represents Christ, because Jesus is the Great High Priest of His people. And so Jesus is saying here, “Go show yourselves unto the priests.”
If we go back to Leviticus 14, we find why Christ said this. He is referring to a Law, another Law. This is like in the book of Galatians where He is referring to Hagar and Sarah and their sons. God begins this by saying, “Do ye not hear the law?” Then He gives us an historical account and His interpretation that this was an allegory and that these things involved two covenants.
So we read in Leviticus 14:1-2:
And JEHOVAH spake unto Moses, saying, This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest:
This is the Law that Jesus was referring to in Luke 17. He actually does this in another place in the Gospels, too.
So Christ was just referring to a Levitical Law. He did not give these ten lepers any insight into the deeper spiritual meaning at all. He just basically quoted Leviticus 14 and told them to go and show themselves to a priest. As they go, all ten are cleansed. Nine continue on. One, a Samaritan, comes back, falls down on his face, and gives glory to God.
Why did he give glory to God? Because this was like someone who reads Leviticus 14 and says, “You know what? The leper represents a sinner and a sinner in the day of his cleansing, or in his salvation, is to go to Christ.”
This is what this Samaritan was basically living out in his excitement. In his great joy, he did not know what he was doing. As he ran back to Jesus, he was glorifying God, because he was fulfilling, not the Law, but the deeper meaning of the Law.
What is more important? Is it the Law or is it its deeper meaning? This is what Luke 17 is telling us. We can have the Law, we can understand the Law, we can try to keep the Law, and we can have the plain and literal meaning of the Scripture; but if we go with this, we are going far away from God and we are not going to glorify Him at all. We are going to fail to give Him glory.
It is those whom God has saved and those to whom He has given this understanding who will see that they have to look for the Gospel. They will understand that they have to look for the spiritual truths.
Now I am going to throw a little monkey wrench into this. Let us go to Luke 18, the next chapter. We read in Luke 18:31-34:
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. And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.
Where is the parable in those statements? Why did they not understand?
Let us look at this again. Jesus is speaking to the disciples, men who were true believers and who had the Spirit of God within them, and He is saying that the Son of Man would be “delivered unto the Gentiles,” and this happened historically. Then He said that He would be “mocked.” Was He not mocked? He was incredibly mocked! Then He said that He would be “spitefully entreated,” and He was. He said that He would be “spitted on,” and this literally happened. He would be “scourged”; and yes, Christ was whipped. He told them that He would be put to death and “the third day he shall rise again.”
All of these things literally happened, but the disciples understood none of this. Plus, this tells us that these things were “hid from them.” How did that happen?
We can imagine them after living with Christ and being with Him during His time of ministry. We can see that they were probably saying to each other, “Is there a spiritual meaning to these things? Is there some underlying thing that we are missing?”
They could not tell whether what He was saying was to be taken literally or spiritually. We can see why, because how many times did they jump to a conclusion and say things like, “This is literal. He is speaking of leaven”? There are also other examples where Christ would say something and they would assume that it would be an actual literal thing.
Turn to Luke 24:44-46. This says:
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.
Again, the Bible tells us, “In the volume of the book it is written of me.”
It continues:
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:
Now they get it and now they understand. This is because He opened their understanding after the fact, after He rose from the dead. This is an important thing for us to keep in mind.
Some people could have said to them, “Now you are saying that He rose from the dead after three days, but you did not know anything about this prior to it. Are you changing your story? Are you changing your story now?” And who knows what they were saying. They were confused and had no idea.
But the disciples, of course, would go and tell people what had happened according to the Scriptures. Then the charge would be, “Now you are trying to find Scriptures and apply them to these events that have unfolded.” This is what the Jews could have claimed, and this is just like the church could do this today.
We have to bring this to May 21. When we look at May 21, what was the problem? The problem was that we did not have a complete understanding. We had an incredible degree of high understanding of what did happen. Yes; this is true. But we did not have a complete understanding of the one word, which was “earthquake.” This, as well as a few other things that connected, gave us a different understanding of events that would unfold.
Because we have learned this now, and it is true that it was after the fact – just like the disciples had to learn things after the fact – we have learned that Judgment Day happened on May 21, 2011. I say this was a very straight face and I say this absolutely. I say that Judgment Day took place spiritually on May 21, which was just about a couple of months ago, and that there was a great earthquake that took place on that day.
I know how this sounds, but let us look at a couple of verses. Let us go to Revelation 6. It says in Revelation 6:12:
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake…
The Greek for “great earthquake” is megas seismos. We, of course, are familiar with these two words. We still hear of mega-deals today. The instrument that is used to measure earthquakes or the shaking of the ground is called a seismograph, which comes directly from this word seismos.
We continue on to read in Revelation 6:12-14:
…there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
As far as this language of the sun becoming “as sackcloth,” the moon becoming “as blood,” and the stars falling, we said and taught pre-May 21 and all of the way up until that day that these things were spiritual. We taught that it was not literally going to be a darkening of the sun, that it was not literally going to be the moon turning to blood, and it was not literally going to be the stars falling. But in this same verse, there is this word “earthquake,” and we said that this was going to be literal.
So please, forgive us, and maybe even forgive yourself, because the understanding of this was impossible without Christ opening up your eyes or my eyes or anyone’s eyes to be able to tell the difference. No one is able to know what the truth is of any Scripture unless Jesus opens up our understanding.
He did this in a big way on many, many things; but in relation to the earthquake, He did not do this for His own purposes; and we know why. We know why, because He wanted the whole world to hear about May 21. The whole world would not have listened if there had not been a physical aspect to this. They would not have done this.
I am not saying that we just said this nor that the world listened. We really believed this. God allowed us to have blinders in this one area. But this is just like the disciples had blinders when He told them pointblank everything that would happen. And so God allowed us to have blinders in order that this information go out into all of the world.
But, anyway, when we read just Revelation 6:12 and following, is this literal or is this spiritual? This is the question that we have to ask. We cannot really tell. We cannot tell. We have no idea, because this takes God’s help.
Go to Revelation 16:16-18. It says:
And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake [megas seismos], such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
Then in the same context, we read in verse 20, Revelation 16:20:
And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
This is very similar to the language that we read in Revelation 6.
And so is this literal or is this spiritual? Well, we thought that this would be literal, that it would be an earthquake “so mighty an earthquake, and so great” that the world had ever seen.
You know what? There was an earthquake and it was “so mighty an earthquake, and so great” that the world had ever seen. But this earthquake accomplished a very specific purpose that was spiritual in nature. The Bible will actually show us this.
If we go to Acts 16, there is another account of a great earthquake. We do not associate this account with the end times at all; but in this chapter, God uses very key language that relates it to May 21. This is the account of a woman who was following Paul and Silas around for days saying, “These men are the servants of the most high God.” But this woman had a demon.
If you are a believer, you do not want someone like this following you around. You would not want any association with someone who was under the influence of Satan and his henchmen.
Paul gets tired of this, and everything that happened was God’s will; but he cast the demon out. He, of course, could not have done this without God giving him this ability. Only at that time before the Bible was completed could there be this ability. But this demon is cast out of this girl, this damsel. However, her owners or her managers were making a lot of money off of her because she was “possessed with a spirit of divination.” They get upset because now the means of their livelihood is all gone; and so they take Paul and Silas to court where they whip them and then throw them into prison. Paul and Silas were strangers and these men with the damsel were operating as businessmen. We will not get into what kind of business they had, but they were Philippians. They were men of Philippi.
So they take Paul and Silas to the prison, and then look at Acts 16:23-24. This says:
And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks.
This is telling us that they were made as secure as anybody could be, because this jailer was not going to let them escape. We have to remember what would happen to some jailers if their prisoners escaped. They would die. They would have to give up their own lives. Earlier in the book of Acts, we find Herod putting to death some jailers for this same reason.
So these men, Paul and Silas, were as secure as they could be in the inner prison. Then it says in Acts 16:25:
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.
Nothing in the Bible is insignificant. What happened at midnight in Egypt? It was the death of the firstborn. What happened in the parable of the ten virgins at midnight? There was a cry made, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh.”
Midnight has to do with judgment, and so God is saying that it was “at midnight.” Actually, Jay P. Green’s Interlinear Bible says that it was “toward midnight.” That is, midnight is almost there. It is about midnight, but not quite.
Look at what they are doing. They are singing praises in this prison and the prisoners heard them. But who are the prisoners? We could say that these represent sinners.
Let us look at a couple of verses in relation to this. I will try to go through them quickly. Turn to Isaiah 42. The previous verses are speaking of Christ. Then we read at the end of Isaiah 42:6-7:
…for a light of the Gentiles; To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
This is what the Gospel does. Spiritually, people are in darkness. Christ is the light of the world. When God saves people, He delivers them out of the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of darkness, and translates them “into the kingdom of his dear Son,” the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Look at Isaiah 61:1-2. This says:
The spirit of the Lord JEHOVAH is upon me; because JEHOVAH hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of JEHOVAH…
“The acceptable year of the LORD” is not an insignificant statement. This statement identifies with the Jubilee year, which was a full year.
A lot of things converged on May 21 that had to do with prisoners and captives. The second Jubilee began in 1994, and May 21, 2011 was the last day of that Jubilee. May 21, 2011 was also the last day of the great tribulation, which was typified by the 70-year period of the Babylonian captivity when Israel was in Babylon for 70 years. And what happened at the end of those 70 years? Or, we could say, what happened on May 21, 2011?
Suddenly, Babylon had fallen. Suddenly, the king of Babylon was slain. Cyrus or Darius are the same person; and, suddenly, Cyrus, the king of Persia, issued a proclamation for all of the captives to go free. This is what the Jubilee is about, because the Jubilee is an issue of freedom and a proclamation of liberty to all of the inhabitants of the land.
What percentage of the Jews were freed from Babylon? 100% were freed, but this does not mean that they all went back to Jerusalem. A lot of them did not; but 100% of them were freed from Babylon.
What is another way in which God speaks of sinners as being in prison or sinners as being in captivity? What about Egypt? In Egypt, the Jews were slaves. They were bondmen and bondwomen to Pharaoh. At midnight, God slew all of the firstborn of Egypt; and with this blow, He freed all of the Jews.
In order to get out, it took a little bit because there were 600,000 men besides women and children, as well as a mixed multitude on top of this. They left the next day. But, basically, for all intents and purposes, it was this blow, this smiting of the firstborn, from Pharaoh on the throne to the firstborn of the captive in the dungeon, that released how many Jews? 100%. How many remained back in Egypt? None.
As soon as this happened the next day, as soon as they walked out of the gates of Egypt from Rameses, did they go right into the Promised Land? From this point, was everything glorious and wonderful forever and ever and ever?
No; it did not work out that way. Even though the land of the Philistines was near, God took them around a long route because He had other plans for Pharaoh, for the Egyptians, and for them, too.
So we are looking at those who were captives, prisoners, slaves, bondmen, bondwomen. This is the nature of sinners and this is the nature of all God’s elect prior to their redemption, even though their redemption is guaranteed.
Look at 2 Timothy 2. These are good verses, but we do not have time to read them all. We read of the servant of the Lord not striving. Then in 2 Timothy 2:26, we read:
And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
Satan is not the prison guard. He is not the Philippian jailer. The Philippian jailer was just a guard and someone who worked for the lords of the city of Philippi. Satan, being represented by the king of Babylon, just gives the orders and others keep the captives within. Pharaoh seated upon his throne had plenty of Egyptian men to keep the slaves at bay, and they were cruel taskmasters.
So Satan works through many ways and through many means. But, ultimately, every sinner is captive to sin, as we read in Proverbs 5:22:
His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
This is due to our own sin, because nobody else’s sin keeps us fast in the stocks. And we are captive to sin and to Satan.
This is true for all of God’s elect prior to salvation. None of God’s elect are now. Not one. Everybody is free. Every last one of God’s elect are free right now. This is why we leave Babylon. This is why we can go out of Egypt. This is why there is a Jubilee to proclaim liberty to the captives, and every single one is now free.
We were saying this prior to May 21, because God intended to save all of His elect before Judgment Day; and He did. But we were so focused on the door shutting, the door to Heaven, represented by the door to the ark. Remember, May 21 was the 17th day of the 2nd month.
We kept thinking that this door would be shutting, and I remember warning people of this as I was out that last night on May 20th. I remember saying, “Tonight! Tonight, in a few hours, the door to Heaven is going to shut.” And it did, but we missed something or we did not focus enough on something else, which was the opening of the door.
Let us go back to Acts 16 and read a little bit more there. We read in Acts 16:25:
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.
This is just like all of the world hearing about May 21. By the way, if this prison is full of sinners, which it is representing, what are Paul and Silas doing there?
Let us quickly look at Hebrews 13:3. This says:
Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them…
This is information that God was giving His people. When we brought the Gospel, we were to remember those who were in bonds – that is, those who were spiritually in their sin – as though we ourselves were bound. We were never to think that we were better than anybody else. We sinned like everyone else.
So, in this sense, here Paul and Silas are and they are bound with all of the other prisoners. Actually, many people who were sharing the message of Judgment Day did not know if they were saved or not. They freely admitted that they might still be in their sins. They were basically saying that they might still have been in prison, spiritually.
Then it goes on to say in Acts 16:26:
And suddenly there was a great earthquake [megas seismos]…
These are the same two words as in Revelation 6 and Revelation 16. There was a megas seismos, a great earthquake, and God does not string words together like this casually. He does not just throw words around.
So let us look at the elements that we have here. We have a prison, which the Bible tells us is where mankind is. We have things happening towards midnight, and midnight represents Judgment Day. We have a great earthquake that identifies with May 21, because Revelation 6 ties this in.
The great earthquake and the darkening of the sun and the moon and the stars, etc., links these things, just as Matthew 24:29 says, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened,” and so forth. The great earthquake and the spiritual darkening of the sun, moon, and stars, which was all spiritual, happened either almost at the same time or at the same time.
Acts 16:26 goes on to say:
And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.
This is referring to the loosing of 100% of all of the prisoners in their prisons, all of their bands, shackles, or fetters, like we read of Joseph “whose feet they hurt with fetters.” How ever it was that Paul and Silas were secured in the inner prison, it had all been opened. All of the prisoners were sprung free.
A great earthquake occurred, but I did not read anywhere about the city of Philippi being destroyed. I do not see anything about this there. I do not even read that the prison walls fell down. We would think that if there was a megas seismos, a great earthquake, as Revelation 16 says, “so mighty an earthquake, and so great” that the world has never seen before, that this would have done some damage. But this was isolated to a prison. More than this, it was specifically located on the locks, on the mechanisms that kept the prisoners bound. This is all that it did and this is the only thing that it did, except it also had some aftershocks or after-effects with the Philippian jailer and his family.
What happened to him? We do not have time to get into this, but he did come trembling. This makes us think about working out our own salvation “with fear and trembling.” He came trembling as a result of the earthquake and as a result of the prisoners not leaving.
So we know that God will feed His sheep, which are those who are typified by this Philippian jailer and his family; and they will come trembling to God and be blessed. And remember that when the jailer came running to the prisoners, if he had found the prison cells empty, he would have killed himself.
I do not know if we can really tie this in, but, in a sense, if there had been a rapture, it would have had ill effects, let us say, for those like this man; but I do not really think that we can make this connection. It is just interesting.
I have to say that this really opens up the Bible. I am really not just saying this. I have been following Family Radio’s teachings for a lot of years. In the past when I would stand apart from them on a couple of things, it would not be too long before Mr. Camping would do a study and I would be corrected.
So I am very used to being corrected, especially over the last few years, and I am very uncomfortable in many senses without that wonderful teacher that we have had for so long who has been used of God to see these things. But I do know this. I cannot believe that God is opening up the Scriptures again in such a wonderful way and that He is showing us certain things. I am just going to mention them and then we will close.
First of all, May 21 was Judgment Day. There is no question about this at all. Spiritually, it was judgment on the world, because the door of salvation shut. There is no more salvation for anyone who did not become saved prior to May 21. They would not be God’s elect anyway.
Secondly, a great earthquake did occur on May 21 that was designed by God to open up the prison of all sinners who are God’s elect. But they may not know this. This is why we keep praying, because they could be people in our families or in our neighborhoods. It could be anybody and they might still be acting very worldly and like somebody who you would never think was saved. But God saved them all. He delivered them all and they are all free, even though they might not know this. This can be a process, as we know, in our own lives. Of course, this process will have to be speeded up, because we do not have too much time left.
The other thing is in relation to Satan. It is a very important thing when we read about the 70-year captivity, the 70-year period, and what God says concerning the king of Babylon. He says in Jeremiah 25:11:
And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
The end of the 70 years identifies with May 21.
Then it says in Jeremiah 25:12:
And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished…
Again, we can insert May 21st here, because it was the end of the great tribulation.
It continues:
…that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith JEHOVAH, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.
This is now. Babylon has fallen. When we investigate this statement that is made several times – Babylon is fallen, is fallen, like in Revelation 18 – this happens at the fall of Babylon after 70 years, which identifies with the end of the great tribulation. The great tribulation is past. It is over. It is done.
Babylon is fallen and the king of Babylon is being punished. Lord willing, we will talk about this. I do not understand everything that this involves, but I do know that Satan was exalted, because God game him official rule in the churches, as well as in the world to a large degree, but especially in the churches. In 100% of the churches, he was God’s servant to bring judgment upon them.
On May 21st, the judgment on the churches was complete. This transitioned to judgment on the world. This is where we are now. The churches are now just part of the world and they are still under judgment, along with the world.
But Satan’s usefulness came to an end. It came to an end and God is no longer calling Satan His servant. God has brought him down quite a number of pegs. Actually, the Bible says that God has brought him down to the grave. God has brought him down to hell. Plus, Satan is not buried. He is being shamed. His body is being exposed, as we read in Isaiah 14.
There are just a couple of other things that the day that we are living in teaches us, which is we should stop weeping right now, immediately. When someone had been freed from Egypt, they would not cry about this. When someone came out of Babylonian captivity, they would not mourn over this. When someone had been a bondman for years and years to someone and then it was the year of Jubilee, they would be glad, they would rejoice, and they would praise God.
This is the language of the Jubilee and this is the language of the Feast of Tabernacles, which we are observing. God tells us to rejoice in our feasts, again and again. Be glad. We go towards October 21 like Jehoshaphat and his army. We go forward singing and praising God and rejoicing. There is to be no more weeping, which also has a spiritual meaning. If we are not to weep, we are not to bring the Gospel.
There is one last thing to mention in Psalm 126 and then we will close. We read in Psalm 126:1:
When JEHOVAH turned again the captivity of Zion…
This would be the true believers.
…we were like them that dream.
Turning the captivity has to do with the end of the 70 years.
Then we read in Psalm 126:2-6:
Then was our mouth filled with laughter…
The Bible tells us that there is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh.” Now is the time to laugh.
It continues:
…and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, JEHOVAH hath done great things for them. JEHOVAH hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad. Turn again our captivity, O JEHOVAH, as the streams in the south. 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 sorrowed and we wept in tears as we brought the Gospel. Why? Because there were unsaved people out there.
We prayed, “O Lord, have mercy!” I am sure that many cried late at night for their family members and for those whom they cared about. As we were approaching May 21st, I am sure that many prayed, “O Lord, have mercy. Save them.” We were basically saying, “Free this one. Free my son. Free my daughter.” And we were crying and weeping.
Does anybody feel this way now? I do not. We are not bringing tracts. We are not moved to put up advertising about October 21. But we are still praying. Actually, I am praying this way, “O Lord, having had mercy, have mercy,” which goes back to May 21. We previously went back to before the foundation of the world. We now pray, “Could it be that having had mercy upon this person, You will have mercy.”
So this is how we can pray now. But the sorrow is gone. The tears are gone. It is a time of rejoicing. It is time to thank God. I think also that we do not say that the Gospel has been silenced. This is sort of implies that someone has put a muzzle over our mouths and that only if we could we would still proclaim it.
We would proclaim the Gospel if there was a purpose for proclaiming the Gospel. The world would despise us or whatever, and the believers would put up with it again and further; but there is no purpose in bringing the Gospel to the world in order that people be saved. This is because the whole point of the Gospel was to send forth the Lord’s Word that His Word might prosper in the thing whereto He sent it, which was to open up all through history this little prison cell and that little prison cell. But God finally, at the end, saved the best for last when He opened them all up – every single one.
Let us close here with a word of prayer.
Dear Father, we do thank You for what You have done, of course, before the foundation of the world in Christ, and all through history and even to this day. Father, we do pray that You would help us to learn to be thankful and to be glad, to thank You for everything that You have given to us spiritually and in every other way. Father, we thank You for Your Word. We pray these things in Christ’s Name. Amen.