I would just like to begin with a quick review. Actually, I need to better explain something about the doubling of the five months.
Last Sunday, we were talking about the five-month period. I said that there were two periods of 147 days; that was correct. But I said that the first period ended on October 15th, which was the 17th day of Tishri, and that the second period began on October 17, the same day. However, there is a correction.
The correction is that we start counting on the day of May 21. Some people would say that this is inclusively. This is because that day was 2/17. That was the day that God shut Noah into the ark and that was the beginning of the judgment; and so we start counting on that day as number one.
In other words, if we look at May 21 through May 31, we would normally count that as ten days; but in this case since we are counting May 21, we would count this as eleven days. May 21 would be day one. May 22 would be day two. Then when you get to May 31, you are on day eleven.
If you do this, then when you reach October 14, that will be day 147. That is Tishri 16; but in the evening, it is Tishri 17. This is because every one of our days has two overlapping Hebrew days. Hebrew days run evening to morning. Tishri 17 begins October 14th in the evening, but it is only a few hours of October 14th. The rest of Tishri 17 is the next day, October 15th. It is like there is one part of Tishri 17 in October 14th and three parts in October 15th. But still, October 14 does begin the day of Tishri 17.
This actually works out better because 147 ends there. On October 15th, it is Tishri 17; and so it ends on Tishri 17 as that day begins in the evening. On the following day, which is October 15th, the second period of 147 days begins. This second period goes to Adar 15 or March 9th. March 9th is the last day of the Feast of Purim, which is the end of the second period of 147 days. This would be the doubling of the five months.
The second thing that I would like to say about this is that some people have pointed out, “You are going from 2/17 of the Hebrew calendar to 7/17 of the Hebrew calendar.” May 21st was 2/17. In the evening of October 14th was the beginning of 7/17. But then they say, “You are not going to 12/17 or Adar 17”; and so they are saying that this is not an equal period of five months.
We can see that 2/17 to 7/17 was five months; but then from 7/17, we are going to Adar 15 or 12/15. We are not going to Adar 17 or 12/17. The reason for this is because if we go to Adar 17, we have 149 days and this is not an equal period of time. That would be two days more, and that would not be a doubled period of time. That would be a larger period of time in the second half.
Also, God has not given us the date of Adar 17 in the Genesis account. He has given us 2/17 and 7/17, and we are able to match this up with the Hebrew calendar from May 21 through October 14th. We are able to count the number of days. It is exactly 147. Therefore, to double this, since God has given us those two dates and we know the space of days, we just simply double the days and then we have an equal or double period of time. We have a double five months. This is more accurate and this is what the Bible would have us to do. There is no need to go to Adar 17.
[Question from someone in the fellowship: According to the Hebrew calendar, when did the day begin?]
The Hebrew day begins in the evening. Remember that the 2300 days of Daniel were called evening/mornings. If we go back to Genesis, we read of evening/mornings. In our Gregorian day, we do not do this. This is why two Hebrew days overlap one of our days; and so October 14 is Tishri 16 till the evening. Then Tishri 16 concludes and that is the legitimate beginning of Tishri 17. Then Tishri 17 goes from evening into the next day or to October 15. That is also Tishri 17 until the evening, and then it becomes Tishri 18.
So I wanted to mention these things. Then another question that came up was the number 147. This is because someone has pointed out that we were using the number 153 in John 21 where we read of 153 fish, and so someone asked where the number 147 was in the Bible. But this number is in the Bible and it is in a very significant place. Actually, I think that this is the only place where we read this number directly.
I say this because, indirectly, there might be two dates mentioned somewhere else and those two dates might be 147 days apart. But when I looked up the number 147 in the concordance, I only found one place. This was in the book of Genesis in chapter 47. This was the time when Jacob was entering into Egypt with his family. If you remember, this was during the famine of his day. The famine had been two years in the land.
If we go back to Genesis 45:1, we read that Joseph “could not refrain himself.” In other words, Joseph (who was a type of Christ) was holding back his identify from his brothers. The famine had already been underway and this famine typified the great tribulation. But then notice Genesis 45:4-6:
And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
What did we just read spiritually? We know historically that Joseph was given information by God. He had been able to interpret Pharaoh’s dream. He knew that there would be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Fourteen years in advance, Joseph had information of what would take place regarding the crops. Due to that advance information, he was lifted up in the kingdom to be the second man in charge beneath Pharaoh.
God greatly blessed him and Egypt because, historically, he actually knew in advance all that would take place regarding the years of plenty and the years of famine. But spiritually, God tells us in Acts 7 that this famine was a time of “great affliction.” These were the very same two words megas thlipsis that are translated as “great tribulation” in Matthew 24 as well as in other places.
So here was Joseph, a type of Christ, revealing himself during the famine (or during the great tribulation) to his brethren and he was telling them that the famine had been two years already; and so they could know the start date, which would have been, historically, 1879 B.C. The date two years later was 1877 B.C. Then he says that there were yet five years that the famine would continue. They knew that it began in 1879. Since it was 1877 B.C., they could know that it would conclude in 1872 B.C.
God just told us that during the great tribulation, in regards to the great tribulation itself or this famine, He would tell us the beginning, a dividing point, and the end of it. Some people say that Christ does not know; but, yes, He does. Here, when was this taking place? This was taking place some 1900 years before Christ was born. He knew this at that time because He is the Word. He is eternal God.
God knows the end from the beginning and the book of Genesis is the beginning. It is the very first book in the Bible and God is putting the information there that at the end of the world, during the great tribulation, we would know that the spiritual famine and the judgment on the churches would begin in 1988, that there would be a dividing point in 1994, and that we would know the conclusion of the great tribulation in 2011. He is telling us that He would give us three dates, just like Joseph revealed three dates to his brethren.
So this historical account has everything to do with our time and what God has been doing. Of course, He did not go into further detail at that point concerning what comes after the great tribulation, these 10 months. He did not do that there. He reserved that for the book of Esther to primarily reveal this further timeline. He has now given us a complete timeline for Judgment Day.
But in Genesis 47, this is at the point where Jacob actually goes into Egypt. In Genesis 47:8, Pharaoh had asked Jacob how old he was. Then Jacob responds in Genesis 47:9:
And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been…
The number 130 breaks down to 10x13. Ten relates to completeness and thirteen relates to the end of the world.
What happened in 1988? It was the 13,000th year of earth’s history. If we were to break this number down, we would have 10x10 (100) x10 (1,000) x13 = 13,000. It breaks down into the same numbers. It has multiples of 10 and then the number 13. This is because it is teaching the same thing. It is the end, so it is the completeness; it is the time for the last stage of the end of the world to begin (the great tribulation).
Is it not true that Jacob’s statement about his life basically sums up 13,000 years of history? Over this period of time, few and evil have the days of this world been. 13,000 years is not anything in comparison with eternity. It is less than a drop in a bucket, and yet God has Pharaoh ask this question in order for Jacob to give his age to identify with the great tribulation that would begin in 1988. This is now the dividing point when Jacob was going into Egypt after two years of famine.
God does not teach every aspect of things all at once. This is actually when Jacob and his family go into Egypt, which pictures 1994. Why? Because for the first two years, they were in the land of Canaan and that identifies with the 2300 evening/mornings when virtually no one was being saved in the world and when God was not sending out the Gospel in the way that He would starting in September 1994 when He would begin the latter rain.
So Jacob and his family, representing the elect, enter into Egypt under the care, protection, and nourishment of Joseph. They will be well taken care of for the next five years of famine and beyond. This is where we get to the number 147.
A little later in Genesis 47, it says in Genesis 47:28:
And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the whole age of Jacob was an hundred forty and seven years.
Then if we read the next couple of chapters, we read that Jacob was about to die.
So God was telling us that when Jacob died, he was 147. I do not think that he was giving us this information for no reason, just like Sarah’s death age was 127 and was really emphasized in the book of Esther as it pointed to all of the provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus.
Here, is it not something that Jacob lived 17 years in Egypt and then he died? Is it not something that from 1994 until 2011 was about 17 years? It was not exactly 17 years, because the latter rain began in September of 1994. It concluded in May of 2011. If it had gone to September, it would have been a full 17 years. But still, if you take 2011 and subtract 1994, you come up with 17.
So it was about 17 years. The latter rain was in its 17th year of going out into the world. Then Jacob’s life comes to a close. We know in many places that God uses Jacob to typify the elect. Romans 9 very definitely pictures this as we read “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”
Here, we have this interesting historical picture which is an historical parable. Jacob enters Egypt during the famine. Of course, the famine ended in 1872 and he died in 1860; but, again, God does not put everything in these pictures. The length of that famine was only 7 years and the actually tribulation was 23 years, yet He makes another identification because Jacob remained in Egypt (in the world) for 17 years until he died.
If we now go to Acts 7, it recaps a lot of the history of Genesis. It says in Acts 7:11:
Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Chanaan, and great affliction…
Those are the two words in the Greek megas thlipsis that are translated as “great tribulation” in Matthew 24 and in Revelation 2 and in Revelation 7. Those are the three other times that those two words are found.
It continues on to say in Acts 7:11-16:
…and our fathers found no sustenance. But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren; and Joseph's kindred was made known unto Pharaoh. Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls. So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers, And were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem.
We have the account of this in Genesis 50. Jacob was embalmed. There was a 40-day period of embalming followed by a 70-day period of mourning when the Egyptians mourned for him.
In Genesis 50:2-3, it says:
And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel. And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days.
These are the two time references that we have here. Then in Genesis 50:10, we read:
And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days.
There had to be other time involved, but these are the only numbers that are given. These would total 117 (40+70+7) and 117 is 3x3x13. Again, even with these numbers, God is putting His finger on the number 13 and that it was His purpose that Jacob be carried over into the land of Canaan after he had spent that time in Egypt.
This is the word that I wanted to look at in Acts 7:16. We read in Acts 7:15-16:
So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers, And were carried over into Sychem…
This is not the usual word for “carried over.”
Another place where this particular word is found is in Hebrews 11. In Hebrews 11:5, it is the word “translated.” It says:
By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
What does the word “translated” mean in this verse? It means that he was “carried over” into Heaven. He was carried up, because Enoch never died. God took him. The word “translated,” which is the same word as “carried over” means that Enoch went from earth to Heaven. Historically, when they took the body of Jacob after embalming him and they carried him over into Shechem, Shechem was in the land of Canaan. What does the land of Canaan represent? It represents the Promised Land of Heaven.
So Jacob dies at the age of 147. Then the Bible says that he was translated into the land of Canaan; and so we could use the word “translated” in Acts 7:16. He was translated into Shechem, because it was picturing the rapture.
To see how this fits with what we are saying, we come to the end of the latter rain on May 21, 2011, the end of that almost 17-year latter rain period. Then we have the number 147 days of five months plus 147 days of five months, 147 being the age of Jacob when he died after he experienced the latter rain in that historical parable. Then Jacob is carried over into the land of Canaan.
I think we can see the significance of this. Keep in mind that also in Genesis it was Joseph who told Pharaoh, “The dream is one.” The Lord had doubled the dream because it would shortly come to pass. And with very little time left, we have just learned that God has doubled the judgment. At the end of that doubling, it looks like the things that the Bible has spoken of for so long will shortly come to pass. This is only about a month or so from now.
[Question from someone in the fellowship: I found a verse in Isaiah 40:2. Can you look at this?]
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Jehovah's hand double for all her sins.
This would probably be referring to the Lord Jesus who paid the penalty before the foundation of the world and then He entered into the world in a tableau and did receive punishment, even though He was not paying for sins at that time. I think that this is what that is referring to.
Let us go back to the book of Esther. In Esther 7, I am going to read the whole chapter; it is only ten verses. It says in Esther 7:1-10:
So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen. And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom. Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request: For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage. Then the king Ahasuerus answered and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so? And Esther said, The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen. And the king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath went into the palace garden: and Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king. Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was. Then said the king, Will he force the queen also before me in the house? As the word went out of the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face. And Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said, Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king's wrath pacified.
In this chapter, we have to keep in mind that this is a continuance of the 17th day of the 2nd month, Judgment Day. And we need to think about this a little bit, because we keep saying that May 21 was Judgment Day and we all keep hearing people say, “Right! Sure it was Judgment Day!”
So let us think about something. We know that the Bible speaks of spiritual judgment because God said to Adam and Eve, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” They did not die physically, but they did die spiritually. But God did not exactly spell this out to them. He did not say, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die spiritually; then sometime later in your life, you will die physically.” He did not tell them everything all at once.
Maybe a novice to the Bible might read this and they might think, “God said that in the day that they ate, they would die. They ate and I can see that it was all bad because there has been a lot of bad language related to this, but they did not die. Actually, I think that Adam did not die until the age of 930. Maybe we cannot know exactly when that took place, but we can be sure that it was many hundreds of years later when Adam died.”
So someone might say, “That is not right. Maybe the Bible does not tell the truth.” But the Bible always tells the truth. It is always perfect, true, and faithful, and yet it is God’s prerogative and His good pleasure whether or not He wants to give all of the information to man or whether or not He wants to withhold some things. In the case of this early account in Genesis, God withheld some of what He had in mind when He said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” because there was a spiritual judgment that He had in mind.
Now let us think of something else. What happened on May 21, 1988? Judgment began at the house of God – judgment! Judgment began at the house of God and it was a 23-year judgment of great tribulation. Over the last decade, at least the people in the churches were hearing that God had brought judgment upon them. The judgment was that the Holy Spirit left out of their midst and that Satan, the “man of sin,” took his seat in the temple.
Of course, we could not see that the Holy Spirit left and we could not see that the “man of sin” took his seat in the temple, but we told them that this was what the Bible said. They were looking around at their church and saying, “But it does not seem any different and I have been coming here since 1970. Between 1970 and 1988 and even up until today, I do not see any difference.”
This was because we could not see something that was spiritual. We could not see God leaving when He is the Spirit and we could not see Satan coming in when he is a spirit, and yet the Bible spoke of this as, “Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!” and “There shall not be left one stone upon another.”
It was a spiritual wasteland and a desolate wilderness with no water of any kind, and yet we knew not to take this literally because we recognized in that case that God was speaking figuratively. We knew that it was not a literal judgment where every stone of every church would be pulled down. It meant that God was through with the church and that they would not be built up for the Kingdom of God anymore. They would not be living stones, one upon another, but they would become this desolation.
This was told to the churches and what did they say? They said, “I do not see it.” There is some teaching out there about the great tribulation being an actual physical time of bloodletting. So people say, “Our church is just like it has always been. We have the Bible. We have good preaching. We have this and that. I do not see it!”
Do you know what people were saying to them? They were saying, “You need to have your eyes opened. In order to see this judgment of God, you need to have your eyes opened. If you could see this, you would get out.”
This was the test that God designed for those in the churches and congregations and it was completely spiritual. Do you trust the Bible? Do you believe the Bible? God is opening up the Scriptures. He was telling them, “It is now the end of the world. It is now judgment upon the churches and the congregations. You are to depart out of the midst. Flee to the mountains. Get out of there because there is no salvation there anymore.” Do you trust God and His Word?
Many of the people in the congregations did not. Of course, God’s elect would leave and they did; but for those who remained, that was it. Up until May 21, there was hope; but when May 21 came, that was it. They were like tares now bundled because they had failed the test that God had designed for them.
When May 21 came, what was true of only the churches and congregations – in that there was no salvation in their midst – expanded to all of the world. If they stayed there, they had nowhere they could go. It was like they were bundled as tares and thrown into the fire and brimstone of Judgment Day.
Yes; I used that phrase again – Judgment Day! Did you see anything? No; but the Bible is telling us now that God had a plan.
It is very easy for people to point their finger at the church and to say, “You should have gotten out.” Even today, people say, “I will never go back to the church. People in the churches do not have spiritual eyes to see what God is saying.” And yet God has designed a test that is almost a duplicate. It is almost the exact same thing. He has designed the test of bringing judgment on the world that we cannot see.
The earth did not literally quake, and yet God says that it did quake. You cannot see that the bars of the prisons were opened and all of the elect were saved. You cannot see what we are reading in the book of Esther that points to Satan’s humiliation. You cannot see that Satan lost all authority and that Mordecai, typifying the Lord Jesus, was exalted. And you cannot see that all of this took place on the 17th day of the 2nd month. You cannot see any of this; none of this. And so God in His wisdom has designed a test for you and for me and for a great multitude of people who are outside of the church.
This is the way that He works. Why did He try the churches for 23 years? Since many of us, for whatever reason, were not in the church, that particular test did not apply to us. In some ways, it did because some were in the church and came out; but still, there are so many people now outside of the churches and congregations and their faith has to also be tested, just like those in the congregations.
What is faith? It is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” It is the “evidence of things not seen.” Was May 21 Judgment Day? You can only see this with the eyes of faith. You can only see this in the Bible. You can only see this truth in the Scriptures.
I am right there with everyone who has been confused and who has been perplexed and who has been asking, “What is going on since May 21?” We thought we had some better understanding, and then October 21 came and that did not take place as we thought it would.
I fully understand about being completely confused, not knowing what God is doing, and not having a clue. But the difference is that God’s people can be confused. They can even not know what God is doing, but they wait on the Lord patiently and they do wait patiently.
It is not waiting patiently to go back to the world over these last few months. It is not waiting patiently to go back to the church over these last few months. It is not waiting patiently to go back to the doctrines of the church as in “no man knows the day or hour.” If you do those things, you are failing the test. You are failing the test because the people of God just wait.
Remember what God says in Hebrews 10:35-37:
Cast not away therefore your confidence…
Our confidence is our trust in Him and His Word. It is our faith, basically, in the truth of the Scripture.
Then it goes on to say:
…which hath great recompense of reward.
We know that this is referring to all of the wonderful things in eternity future.
It continues:
For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
The next part is not accidentally there either. We read next in Hebrews 10:38:
Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
Do you see what God is saying? This is a perfect description. This is perfect, to the very detail, of this time when we should not cast away our confidence that we had prior to May 21 as we were looking with expectation to that day, but we have “need of patience.”
It is a need; it is a necessity. Why? It is because we just have to wait. We want something and yet we have to wait for time to pass in order to get it; but that is not patience. Everybody will pass this time; but, actually, patience is when we pass this time in a right way. Remember what God said, “In your patience possess ye your souls.” This is how important patience is at this time.
Look at Revelation 14, which is the very chapter where He is speaking of Judgment Day, Babylon’s fall, and the drinking of the cup, and notice that it says in Revelation 14:11:
And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image…
By the way, this is referring to this double five-month period where there is “no rest.” What did Jesus say in Matthew 11? He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest…ye shall find rest unto your souls.” He was speaking of salvation. But “day nor night,” there is no rest for anyone because the door is shut.
We cannot be wishy-washy about this. This is the judgment. If this was not the judgment, how in the world was it Judgment Day spiritually? God shut the door and that was the judgment upon the world. There is still hope for those in our lives because we do not know who was saved and who was not. We can still pray, “O Lord, could it be that You did something before You shut the door,” but God did shut the door.
Then it goes on to say in Revelation 14:11-12:
…they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints…
And notice the context: “they have no rest day nor night.”
There are five months of torment plus five months of torment. This is the patience and this is the time when there is a need of patience. Why? Well, we have gone over this before, but it is good to remember this. James 1:3 says:
Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
This is Biblical patience and this is the patience that we must have. Our faith is being tried at this time. We are all very confident and sure that it is. We are being tried like never before and in a way that we have never experienced; yet the trying of our faith develops or works patience, because the child of God waits.
We do not know what is going on. All I know is that the timeline is not from man. It came from the genealogies. Therefore, it came from the Bible and, therefore, it came from God, and I trust God and I trust His Word. Everything fits too perfectly – far too perfectly – for any man to have put the timeline together. I know that the date of May 21 was singled out, not by someone but only by God Himself; and so we wait.
People have waited as they have wondered, “What is going on?” And God has opened up our understanding. He is showing us, “Okay; now we find in the book of Esther the underlying date that was May 21 or 2/17, the 17th day of the 2nd month.”
In the book of Esther, look at the events that take place on that day over three chapters. We see the humiliation of Haman, who is a clear type of Satan. We see the exaltation of Mordecai, who is a clear type of Christ. But it is not through yet. Then there is a banquet of wine, which is where we are in Esther 7. It says in Esther 7:2:
And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom.
Here, again, we talked about this before; but Esther is representative of the believers who have gone to God. She went before this day and on this day itself on behalf of herself and her people, “O Lord,” and, basically, this was like so many who were praying, “Have mercy. Have mercy, O Lord, because there is a set day for judgment. Judgment Day has been established and I am coming for my life and for the life of all of my people.” And this is what God’s people did. We prayed, “O God, have mercy on me. Have mercy on my family. Have mercy on our neighbors and on our friends and on our co-workers, on everyone.”
I hope everyone remembers how openly and how freely we talked about mercy. Do you remember that? Do you think that we had a change in mind and that we suddenly became cruel? Do you think that we just do not want to talk about mercy anymore? Was it not Family Radio and EBible who were saying that God was saving a great multitude as people would look around with their natural eye and say, “I do not see them; I do not see this great multitude. Are you sure? The great multitude is just referring to all those God saved throughout history.” But we kept insisting, because the Bible insists, that it was a great multitude that came out of great tribulation and that the door was wide open in a way that it had never been before. It was flung wide open.
When we were teaching this, there were critics. There were those who were contrary to this, “Close that door some. Actually, close it a whole bunch. It is too far wide open.” This is what they would say then. But in Psalm 84, the Bible says that we are doorkeepers, which is a lowly position. We are servants. If the boss says to open the door wide because he wants everyone to be able to come in today, we keep the door open. Then if he calls down and tells us to shut the door because he does not want anyone in today, we shut the door.
Revelation 3 tells us, “He that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth.” He opened up “a great door and effectual” throughout the almost 17 years of the latter rain, and yet people tried to shut it; but no man could shut it. Now He has closed the door and He is the One who shut it.
Who shut Noah into the ark after seven days? The Bible tells us, “The LORD shut him in.” Who shut the door to this world after 7,000 years? The Lord shut the door. You can try and open it, you can fight against this, you can try to do whatever you want, but you cannot open something that God has shut and you cannot change what God has done.
This is all that we do, and we share what we know. We share what the Bible says. We cannot go beyond it. We cannot do less than this or more than this. We just share what the Bible says.
So, here, Esther is making her petition and it is granted; and we remember that Proverbs 10:24 said, “The desire of the righteous shall be granted.” God tells us that if we pray along the lines of His will, then He will hear our prayers. If we prayed for anyone who was an elect person, God heard that prayer and He saved them.
The offer of half the kingdom was given to her because the Bible tells us, “It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Half was given to Esther because we are “joint-heirs with Christ.”
Then Esther 7:3-4 goes on to say:
Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request: For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage.
Esther is laying out her whole situation, “I am going to die and my people are going to die,” and so Esther is going to the king and petitioning him for favor for their lives.
Spiritually, this matches very well with God’s people praying for salvation, not based on anything in them or on any merit of their own but by grace – and favor identifies with the grace of God.
Then we read in Esther 7:5:
Then the king Ahasuerus answered and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?
I wonder what Haman was thinking at this point? I wonder if he was connecting the dots yet that she was talking about him and her people the Jews? We know that he must have already been feeling uneasy from what had happened earlier in the day when he had to take Mordecai around on horseback. More than likely, Haman was still very shaken by that.
Remember that the counsel from his wife and his friends was, “If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him.”
So Haman was very uneasy to begin with. Then all of a sudden at this banquet of wine, Esther’s petition has to do with her life and with the life of her people, because they were sold “to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish.” She really emphasized that there was no doubt about what was to happen. She knew that they were going to die and that it had been purposed that she and her people would perish.
I am sure that when Esther mentioned being sold, that would have clicked with Haman because he had basically bought them. The king had sold them for destruction, and Haman is sitting there when the king asks the question:
…Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?
Maybe Ahasuerus was putting things together, too, because who else could it have been who had been sold for destruction? Maybe even looking at Haman, who could not have looked too comfortable, the king could have started putting this together, too. Sometimes we ask questions when we know the answer. The king could have been looking at Haman when he asked, “Who is he, and where is he?”
God does this. Ahasuerus typifies God and back in Genesis 3 after Adam and Eve had sinned and had sown fig leaves together, it says in Genesis 3:8-9:
And they heard the voice of JEHOVAH God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of JEHOVAH God amongst the trees of the garden. And JEHOVAH God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
“Where are you Adam?” Did God know where he was? Of course He knew; and yet through this question, He wanted to really have Adam think about it and to put the finger on Adam because God knew that Adam and sinned and that he was trying to cover it up and to hide from Him.
Look at Genesis 4:9:
And JEHOVAH said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
God was basically asking, “Where is Abel?”
In both cases, God asks a question before He pronounces judgment. In the case of Adam and Eve, He asks, “Where art thou?” Then He proclaims the judgment, “Because thou hast done this.” It was the same thing with Cain after asking Cain, “Where is Abel thy brother?” God goes on to pronounce the judgment upon Cain and He drives him out “from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid.”
Now it is Judgment Day for the world. In this case, the focus is on Satan. Haman is representing Satan, and so the question is asked by King Ahasuerus in Esther 7:5:
…Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?
We are going to stop here.