- 2011 Latin American Bible Conference, April 22, 2011The Method God Is Talking AboutWe have already considered the relationship between Abraham and Lot. Abraham accepted God’s command and acted accordingly, but his nephew Lot chose a different path despite the fact that he was close to Abraham. If we apply this to our personal lives, we can see Abraham as representing the desire deep down in our hearts to live according to God’s word, while Lot represents the thoughts of the flesh which seek to please ourselves in opposition to this. Lot faced many problems. On one occasion, a war broke out and he was taken prisoner, but Abraham went and rescued him. At that time when Abraham returned with his nephew, he was met by two kings. One was Bera, king of Sodom and the other was Melchizedek, king of Salem. Abraham recognized who Melchizedek was and offered him his tithe. Melchizedek appears in the Bible in advance as an image of the God whom we are to worship, Jesus in whom we believe. The king of Sodom, however, spoke words of temptation to Abraham. The king of Sodom symbolizes the power that tempts us and entices us to follow our hearts’ desires.As we are living now in the age of the Church, we have complete assurance of faith in Jesus Christ who is our head and we serve Him as we gather together to have fellowship. Nevertheless, there are in this world things such as the power of religion which seek to pull our hearts away from such fellowship and towards that which seems good and overflows with compassion. So in Proverbs chapter 7, we have considered the image of the harlot who seeks to snatch away our faith. Abraham giving his tithe to Melchizedek, who symbolizes God the Creator of the world, demonstrates to us how we are to serve God. The king of Sodom, on the other hand, presents us with the opposite image of the king of this world, who appears continually throughout the Bible. Such incidents containing many meanings often arise within the life of Abraham. Such images are also to be found within the history of Israel. The Bible has a very unique way of presenting its message. Through the book of Genesis, God has shown everything that He wanted to show to the world. The matters that God presented to us in advance in Genesis, however, are presented again through the history of Israel over a much longer time span and through many more people. Abraham was an individual who lived in this world for less than two hundred years, but Israel was a nation made up of a vast number of people who walked the same path that Abraham had walked. Abraham, however, became the father of faith as he overcame the trials that God set before him, but Israel was not able to overcome the trials it faced. Then later, in an image similar to that of Abraham who lived with the conviction that God would accomplish all that He had said, Someone who accomplished all things appeared within the history of Israel. That Someone was Jesus. He completely overturned Israel’s failure, presenting to all mankind an image of total submission to God. When Jesus came to the land of Israel, He told the Jews that their forefather Abraham had not behaved as they did, to which the Jews replied, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Then Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I AM” (see John 8:56-58). Jesus was the Lord of Creation who had dominion over all things and created this world before He was born through the body of Mary. The fact that the Israelites did not acknowledge and recognize Jesus as the Messiah was not simply a matter of their failing to recognize who He was when He was born. When you look further back in their history, you find that the ancestors of the Israelites made similar mistakes to those made by the Jews at the time of Jesus.   History from Abraham to the ExodusAt the beginning of  Genesis chapter 15, we find God making a promise Abram: “One who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” Abram (later called Abraham) believed in these words of the Lord, and God accounted it to him for righteousness.   I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.  Genesis 15:7   Abram originally lived in a distant land but he received and obeyed God’s command and came to the land of Canaan. There God promised that He would give this land to him as an inheritance. When Abram asked God, “How shall I know that I will inherit it?”, God told him to bring a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. Then when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and horror and great darkness fell upon him.   Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.”  Genesis 15:13-18   God told Abram that his descendants who would come from his own body would be strangers in a land that was not theirs, and that they would serve them. He was referring to a specific event that his descendants would go through in the future. Which country did Abraham’s descendants go to? Let’s turn first to Genesis chapter 12 verse 10.   Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land.   Chapter 13 verse 1.   Then Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, to the South. Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold.  verses 1-2   Chapter 15 verse 14.   And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.   Where did Abram go? He went to Egypt. And where did Abram’s descendants go and live for 430 years, and then leave? It was Egypt.Later, Isaac was born to Abraham, but just before he was born, something happened. As a punishment, God completely destroyed the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, which was governed by the king of Sodom whom Abraham had met. At that time, Abraham’s nephew, Lot, barely escaped death, being led out of the city by an angel. This person, Lot, was quite a troublemaker. Previously he had been rescued by Abraham, and this time he was dragged out of a place upon which was poured fire and brimstone. He was protected until the end. After this incident, Abraham’s son, Isaac, was born as God had promised.When Isaac was old, he had twins. Their names were Esau and Jacob. Jacob was the younger twin, but he later received the blessings of the firstborn. Later, God gave Jacob the name of Israel. Twelve sons were born to Jacob and the fourth of these—Judah— became the ancestor of King David. Joseph, who was engaged to Mary, was also a descendent of Judah. Jesus did not inherit the blood of man, but was born of the lineage of kings.Joseph was the eleventh of the twelve sons. One day he dreamt that his brothers’ sheaves bowed down to his sheaf and then in another of his dreams the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowed down to him, meaning that his parents and eleven brothers all bowed down to him. Even before Joseph told his dreams to his brothers, they were already jealous of him because their father, Jacob, loved him more than any of his brothers, but when Joseph told them about his dreams, they hated him all the more. So they conspired together, stripped Joseph of his clothes and cast him into a pit. Later, they sold him in return for silver to some merchants on their way to Egypt. When Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus, he was given thirty pieces of silver, and we are given a preview of this here in the book of Genesis. Then, his brothers dipped his clothes in the blood of an animal and brought them to their father, saying, “We have found this. Do you know whether it is your son’s tunic or not?” So Jacob mourned greatly for Joseph, thinking he had been killed. When Joseph came to Egypt, he found himself working at the house of Potiphar, the captain of the guard of the pharaoh. But God was always with Joseph, so his actions were seen to be very wise. Potiphar’s wife desired this young, handsome Hebrew, but he refused her so she framed him and accused him of trying to rape her. Joseph being subjected to false accusations in this way presents us with a foreshadowing of Jesus as He was crucified as a result of the false accusations of His own people. After that, two high-ranking officers were imprisoned in the same place. One was the pharaoh’s chief baker and the other his chief butler. Bread and wine were also the items that Melchizedek brought out when he met Abraham. Each of these two officers had a dream, and Joseph listened to their dreams and interpreted them. He told the chief baker that his dream meant that he would be executed, and he told the chief butler that his dream meant he would be reinstated and serve the pharaoh once more. This incident was also a foreshadowing of Jesus being put to death in the flesh, but His precious blood bringing us eternal life. As Joseph had predicted, the chief butler was reinstated and worked for the pharaoh again. At this time, Joseph asked the chief butler to remember that he had interpreted his dream and help him get out of prison, but the chief butler forgot all about Joseph after he went back to the pharaoh. So Joseph had to remain in prison under this false charge for two more years. This period of time during which Joseph had to wait was one of deep mystery; it provides us with a brief glance at God’s plan for the history of the Church which He intended to work out in this world, a plan He had had since before the foundation of the world. According to the prophecy of Daniel, the history of the world would end seven years after the death of the Messiah, but that seven-year period has been postponed and now the age in which we are living is unfolding. This is the age of the Church which God had planned in His heart before He created this world.Let’s turn back to the story of Joseph. One day, Pharaoh had a dream. In his dream there were seven fat and fine-looking cows, but then seven ugly and gaunt cows appeared and they ate up the seven fat and fine-looking cows. Then the pharaoh dreamt of seven plump and full heads of grain on one stalk, but seven thin and blighted heads sprang up after them and they devoured the seven plump and full heads. The pharaoh had summoned all the fortunetellers in Egypt and told them to interpret his dreams, but no one was able to do it. At that time, the chief butler said to the king, “I remember my faults this day. When I was in prison, a young man from the Hebrews interpreted my dream, telling me I would be reinstated and serve you once more.” So Joseph was brought before the pharaoh and interpreted his dreams.   The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good heads are seven years; the dreams are one. And the seven thin and ugly cows which came up after them are seven years, and the seven empty heads blighted by the east wind are seven years of famine … Indeed seven years of great plenty will come throughout all the land of Egypt; but after them seven years of famine will arise, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine will deplete the land. So the plenty will not be known in the land because of the famine following, for it will be very severe.  Genesis 41:26-27, 29-31   Through this passage, we can see that a certain period of seven years remains to unfold within the course of history. Seven years of great tribulation will unfold on this earth the likes of which have never been seen before, but right before that the Church will be taken up to stand before Jesus Christ. The Church will enter into a time of a great feast with Jesus during those seven years. This is the significance of the seven good cows. The pharaoh’s dream and its interpretation definitely did not just happen by chance. The process of history is in the hands of God who was showing us His plan in advance through Joseph and the pharaoh. Joseph advised the storing of grain during the years of abundant harvest so that it could be used during the years of famine, and the pharaoh was so delighted with this advise that he gave Joseph his signet ring and put him in charge of the task. In this way Joseph became premier over the land of Egypt, second only to the pharaoh. Joseph had been unfairly treated and sold into slavery by his brothers, but now he was receiving glory. The suffering that Joseph had endured was nothing in comparison to the glory that would come to him. Also, Pharaoh had Joseph marry an Egyptian woman. This is showing that after the seven-year feast has taken place, the Jews and the Gentiles will become one as the bride of Jesus, the groom. Joseph had two sons, one was named Manasseh and the other Ephraim. Then the seven years of famine came so Joseph’s brothers went down to Egypt to buy grain. There they met Joseph and he forgave them. Here we are given a preview of how the Jews, even though they crucifi

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