eBible Fellowship

Welcome

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Friday night “Question and Answer Program.” Tonight we are going to take a look at the Bible in regard to any questions or comments anyone may have and everyone is invited to share by contacting us in the ways that were just mentioned. We will be glad to take your question and I will try to respond by going to the Bible, as the Bible is God’s holy Word.

Questions and Answers

Question #1 - 00:01:08

Question via Pal Talk: I find so many unsaved people asking, “Why do you Christians search and look for a date for the Lord’s return? Why not just wait it out?” Can you please explain how we can answer this question?

Answer: This is a good question. It is a very timely question, but let me just say that the child of God searches the Bible for truth and that is the #1 reason we search the Bible. I think it is significant that when we go to the Bible, verse by verse, all sorts of information will open up.

If you remember, Mr. Camping was going verse by verse through the Book of Acts and he learned information concerning the end of the church age. When you go through the Bible, verse by verse, you are confronted with every doctrine the Bible teaches because you are not “picking and choosing” the topics that you want to address or topics that you like. This is what a lot of pastors do and they pick topics that are in line with their particular denominational position, so they may have a “topical study.” They will pick the topic of God’s love on one Sunday and they will pick the topic of giving the next Sunday. They may pick the topic of marriage the following Sunday. If you want to approach the Bible that way, you can always be positive and upbeat and you will find things that are pleasing to people. Anyone can do that, if you do topical Bible studies because you can focus on certain areas and avoid other areas. You can avoid controversial areas or areas that might offend someone. You can avoid areas that may put you in a different doctrinal position than your denomination holds, avoiding Scriptures that teach against it. Overwhelmingly, pastors today teach what their congregations expect and want to hear, so they will follow the topical framework when doing Bible study.

But when you go verse by verse, you cannot do that. You are going to come across verses that will lead in every direction imaginable. Mr. Camping came across information in the Book of Acts concerning the end of the church age and other information that related to a timeline of history, and so forth.

There is another Biblical principal we should talk about. When a child of God learns information from the Bible, they are obligated to share that information. In other words, we do not go to the Bible to find out things that we then keep to ourselves — that goes contrary to the nature of the child of God. We share what we learn. When you go to the Bible without looking for any particular topic, but you go verse by verse, you have to deal with many topics. For example, we will soon study the Book of Genesis, verse by verse, Lord willing. Yes, we do want to learn about the Biblical calendar of history and information regarding the time after the door of the ark was shut, but we are going to have to talk about the creation. We are going to have to talk about the nature and Person of God and His eternal characteristics, and so forth. We are going to have to look at everything we find, including the fall of man into sin, the effects of sin on the creation, and so forth. We will not avoid it, as we go through each verse. Therefore, we learn about many different things.

This is the best way to study the Bible. We are not going to “pick and choose.” Right now, it is amazing how many people are directly saying to EBible, “Do not study information concerning timelines. Do not study information concerning dates. Stop doing that.” I wonder why so many people in the churches and the world want us to stop doing that. Why the pressure? Why the tremendous pressure to stop looking in that direction? You know, I am sorry, but when you are a child of God you go to the Bible and what God opens up to you is what you must speak. The minute we say, “I am going to go to the Bible, but if I learn something in a certain area I am not going to speak about it,” then we are no different than the denominations. They say, “My denominational stance concerning election is this and if I learn something contrary to that, I will not speak about that because it would mean I cannot be a pastor in this church any longer.” They have all sorts of restraints upon them; they can go so far, but no further; they can teach up to certain point of doctrinal understanding that their denomination upholds, but they do not cross that line.

We cannot put constraints of any kind upon us when studying the Bible. When people of the world or people of the churches attempt do that, it is just typical of what has been done within all the churches in the world today. By God’s grace, EBible Fellowship is not a church or under any church’s authority for one big reason. God has ended the church age and we are not governed by the opinion of the people of the world or what they expect of us. They are not our authority. The corporate church is not our authority. Our authority is the Bible. That is why we turn to the Bible and if God opens up more information, then very well. The granting of Biblical information comes from God and we would not understand anything unless God opened our understanding, so we will continue to leave it in God’s hands.

Let us go to our first caller tonight.

Question #2 - 00:12:32

Welcome to our “Question and Answer Program.” Please go ahead with your call.

Caller: Please read Leviticus 23:34:

Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto JEHOVAH.

Caller: Also, read Deuteronomy 16:13:

Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine:

Caller: Could you explain these verses?

Answer: These are verses where God is laying down the timeline for the Feast of Tabernacles. He tells us when it begins, which is “the fifteenth day of this seventh month,” and He tells us how long it will last. Of course, there is other information and we know there was an “eighth day” of holy convocation and the Bible also teaches us there is a “ninth day,” a day when the people would travel home on the 23rd day of the seventh month. So we put all this information together and we see that this feast begins on the 15th and concludes on the 23rd and this year of 2015, the date was October 7, 2015, which had the underlying Hebrew calendar date of the 23rd day of the Hebrew seventh month and the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. This was one of the reasons we were looking toward that date of October 7, 2015 as the likely end because the Bible ties the phrase “the last day” together with the language of the last day of the world and the last day of Tabernacles in two different places. That was one of several reasons we looked toward October 7th as the likely end of the world.

Thank you for calling and sharing.

Question #3 - 00:15:29

Let us go to our next caller. Welcome to our “Question and Answer Program.” Please go ahead with your call.

Caller: I would like you to consider two verses and they concern the word “bosom,” whether it is Abraham’s bosom or it is the bosom of JEHOVAH. I know we need to look at a “bridge” when we go from the Old Testament to the New Testament and I am wondering if I have found the verse that might serve as the bridge between these two verses. The first verse is Luke 16:23:

And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

The second verse is Isaiah 40:11:

He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.

Caller: I want to consider these verses in light of our present time. I wonder if I have authority to do that (from the Bible) because of what it says in Genesis 16:4-5:

And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: JEHOVAH judge between me and thee.

Answer: What were you thinking about this connection with the word “bosom?”

Caller’s Question: I wanted to know if this verse in Genesis 16:5 kind of authorizes me to compare the verse in Luke about Abraham’s “bosom” with the verse in Isaiah 40:11 about the Lord’s “bosom?”

Answer: Can I ask you a question? Is it the same Hebrew word that is used in Isaiah 40:11 and Genesis 16:5? We do know there is a reference to Abraham’s bosom in Genesis 16 and if it is similar to Luke and if it is the same Hebrew word as used in Isaiah 40, then that could tie it in. Also, Abraham is a type of God Himself. In Luke 16, Lazarus is in His bosom and in Isaiah 40, Jesus is the one that gathers His lambs, and so forth, and He is God, so it is the same picture. Yes, I think it is a good tie-in on a couple of different levels.

Caller: I praise God for that because we get a great amount of strength when we read about that. It is the same Hebrew word in Genesis and in Isaiah. It is Strong’s #2436.

Answer: Very good. Thank you for calling and sharing those verses.

Question #4 - 00:21:16

Let us go to our next caller. Welcome to our “Question and Answer Program.”

Caller’s Question: Do you still think it is the Day of Judgment? And what about after the ark landed and Noah let out the raven and then he let out the dove that came back with the branch? Do you think we are right at the end and how might the account of the raven and dove relate?

Answer: It is interesting that God has opened up the Biblical calendar of history and we are going to review all that when we go through Genesis, Lord willing.

But there is a sound principal that one should not alter or change a teaching of Scripture you held onto because it was proven by the Bible until it is “disproven.” For instance, you can look at information in Scripture concerning anything in the Bible and maybe you are learning something about a particular doctrine. Let us use the example of the doctrine of “hell” that was held a few years ago before God opened up Mr. Camping’s understanding to realize that “hell” was not a place, but that God’s punishment of the wicked would be “eternal annihilation.” I remember that Mr. Camping came out with that teaching in November 2009 and I am sure that in the few weeks before he began to teach that if someone had called the Open Forum to ask about “hell,” he would probably have given the same answer he had given for many years because he was still checking it out. But unbeknownst to the listeners, Mr. Camping may have been studying this new understanding for several months and he was headed in that direction of a new understanding, but you do not drop one understanding until you have thoroughly checked out everything else, comparing all the Scriptures and making sure the conclusion harmonizes. When you have done all that and you are convinced, by God’s grace, then you teach the new understanding.

So in looking at Judgment Day, the Biblical timeline of history has been very clear. The church age is over. We have the timeline for the Great Tribulation and we have the day of transition when the door shut on the world. It is very precise. It was an exact 8,400 days or exactly 23 years. So, we are going to review, but I do not see anything that says the world is not under judgment. According to the Bible, it is Judgment Day. It is the time when the door has shut. But, again, we keep studying and searching.

Now there are interesting things about the account after the flood in Genesis, chapter 8. In the prior chapter the waters of heaven poured out for forty days and God opened up the water from beneath and He brought water from above and the earth was under that deluge for 150 days. In chapter 7 the Hebrew word translated as “waters” was used by God nine times and the number “nine” is “3 x 3,” which indicates the purpose of God. In every place it is used, it speaks of the waters increasing or prevailing. In every case, it is always increasing and “prevailing exceedingly.”

Then in Genesis, chapter 8, the word is also used exactly nine times, indicating the purpose of God. In every instance that the word “waters” is used it has in view that it is decreasing, as in when it says the waters “abated.” It is true in every instance. So, in Genesis 7 the water is constantly increasing and in Genesis 8 it is decreasing and, again, there are the same number of times the word is used. In Genesis 8, the water decreases and decreases until it is gone and those waters typified the judgment of God. Of course, it also represents the Word of God, but in this case it was the means of judgment and the means of expressing the wrath of God. So, in one case, the judgment increased for five months, from the seventeenth day of the second month to the seventeenth day of the seventh month. The waters increased until they were 15 cubits above the highest mountain. Then God’s judgment decreased for the rest of the time that Noah, his family and the creatures were in the ark. The waters kept decreasing and decreasing.

So we wonder what God is telling us. We know these facts:

• God judged the world of Noah’s day through the flood and destroyed everything with the breath of life outside the ark.

• Noah and those in the ark are a type or figure of those that God saves.

• There is a prolonged judgment. Noah and his family are living on the earth over a prolonged period of time when the water increased and then when the water decreased.

Then God also gives us several dates in Genesis, chapter 8. He breaks up the gradual decline of the water in a few different places. One thing we see is that as the waters go down the tops of the mountains appear. As the water goes down even more, the dove returns with an olive leaf plucked off. These are indicators of the “new earth” because the bible speaks of the world that was flooded as the “old world.” So there is a “new world” coming and when the waters finally abated and dry land appeared (and even after dry land had appeared), God kept Noah and his family and all the creatures in the ark for a time longer. When they came out of the ark, they came out to a “new earth.” It is an historical parable pointing to a prolonged period of Judgment Day and over the period of the prolonged period of judgment, there are evidences of the new earth, like the tops of the mountains and the olive leaf. In regard to the olive leaf, in Deuteronomy 8 it says that the Promised Land was a place of “oil-olive.” In regard to the tops of the mountains, the mountain was Ararat and it is a picture of the new kingdom of God that will be unveiled as the new heavens and new earth where God will dwell with His people.

So all these things are in view. The big thing is to be able to understand the various “breaks” in the dates that God gives us in Genesis, chapter 8, and I do not understand it at this point. Maybe God will give us more understanding, but at this time I do not think we know what those various breaks represent.

Thank you for calling and sharing and let us go to our last caller tonight.

Question #5 - 00:33:36

Welcome to our Friday night “Question and Answer Program.” Please go ahead with your call.

Caller: It seems that my question is similar to what you are discussing. In Regard to Revelation 14:20 and the “1,600 furlongs,” could it be it was not pointing to the end but that it was a “time marker” in the continuous Day of Judgment? And did it match with the Feast of Tabernacles just to alert us that we are on the right path and that it is locked in?

Answer: Well, yes, it is a possibility we have to look at and a couple of people have sent me notes pointing out that the word “by” in Revelation 14:20, where it says, “by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs,” is actually the word “apo,” which should be translated as “from.” So it would say, “from the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.” That is something to keep in mind.

The other thing that it would be good for us to look into further are the “three woes” of Revelation 9 and following. Mr. Camping and I both taught that these “three woes” were simultaneous. The “first woe” dealt with the figurative five months and then came the “second woe.” Then there is more information given and then, finally, comes the “third woe.” We know the “three woes” identify with the last “three trumpets” and we were thinking that the last trumpet blew May 21, 2011 and all three woes were simultaneous in nature, but it is something for us to look into further to see if there are stages. There are some interesting thoughts along those lines:

1. Genesis, chapter 8 and the stages of the waters of God’s wrath rescinding, as it gets closer and closer and with evidences mounting for the “new earth.” That is what we can see in Genesis 8 and there was need for patience on the part of Noah and his family. There were bits of evidence with seeing the tops of the mountains and with seeing the dove return with an olive leaf, but it was still not time to come out of the ark. There are evidences of “stages” to the conclusion of the judgment;

2. We had evidence of the wilderness sojourn with its tie-in to the 1,600 days, as a time of testing and judgment. If we continue to follow the historical account, there was the deliverance from Egypt and the coming out of Egypt, which we know relates to God saving all His elect prior to May 21, 2011. There was that time of testing for 40 years and then they entered the Promised Land of Canaan, but God had said He would not drive out the inhabitants of that land all at once, but “little by little.” So, there was a period of conquest of the land of Canaan, which represents the Promised Land, but it was done in “stages” before they received the completion of the promise.

So these are some thoughts that may help us as we continue to study and pray for wisdom that the Lord might give us understanding.

Closing

Thank you for calling and sharing your comment and I would like to thank everyone for joining us tonight.