Study in the Epistle of Jude # 75: Verse 14

by Chris McCann

EBible Fellowship (http://www.ebiblefellowship.com)

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. In our last time together, we were looking at the three feasts that God speaks of in Exodus 23 and relating those three feasts that were to be held in the year to the acceptable year of the Lord. This ties in with Enoch’s age—at the time when God took him and translated him out of this world, he was 365 years of age.

We have seen that God has spiritually fulfilled these feasts, and that they are extremely important seasons within God’s calendar, within His salvation program. The Passover was fulfilled when the Lord Jesus went to the Cross nearly two thousand years ago—that was the deeper spiritual meaning of the Passover feast. Pentecost or Firstfruits was filled as three thousand were saved on the day of Pentecost, which was fifty days following the Passover. The Apostle Peter preached one sermon, and three thousand became saved. This signaled the beginning of the New Testament era, the season of firstfruits. Throughout the approximately nineteen hundred years of the New Testament Church Age, the firstfruits were being gathered as God poured out the early rain.

Then finally God speaks of a third season—the time of ingathering, which was to be held on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. We did look at that feast of Ingathering, but God also held another feast in conjunction with the feast of Ingathering, which was called the feast of Tabernacles. We wonder, “Since the feast of Ingathering is so important and so pertinent to God’s salvation plan and since it fits in with the very end of the world and the completion of God’s plan, how does the feast of Tabernacles fit into this whole scheme? How does God tie in this particular feast?” It was a feast that was unusual in its character. The Israelites would gather together branches of various trees, and when they observed this feast correctly, they would go up on their rooftop, on their housetop, and build them a booth. They would do this to commemorate and to remember Israel’s coming out of Egypt. We can read about this in Leviticus 23:34-36, which says:

Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD. On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: it is a solemn assembly; and ye shall do no servile work therein.

Then further down, in verses 39-43, we read:

Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the LORD seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath. And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days. And ye shall keep it a feast unto the LORD seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month. Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths: That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

This is where the feast of Tabernacles gets it is name—the word “booth” is the same word as “tabernacle.” They were to dwell in these booths that they would make from the branches of palm trees and thick trees and willows of the brook, and they were to dwell in them to remember the coming out of Egypt long ago.

If you recall, Israel went into Egypt in the days of Joseph and Jacob. For awhile, they were treated very well; at least as long as Joseph was the prime minister of Egypt. However, in time, another Pharaoh ascended the throne who knew not Joseph (Exodus 1:8), and Israel began to be treated badly until the point that they became slaves of the Egyptians. Yet they grew and multiplied in Egypt until they became a great nation, just as God had promised Abraham. Then at the proper point in God’s salvation plan, Israel came out of Egypt.

This was the purpose, the reason, for the feast of Tabernacles—it was a feast of remembrance. It was a feast when the Jews would look back upon the exodus, the coming out of Egypt. We can understand why God would arrange to have a feast like this in order to keep the wonderful things that God had done fresh in the minds of Israel. As they would observe this feast, they would remember again and again the plagues that God sent upon the Egyptians and Pharaoh. They would remember how He sent greater and greater plagues until finally the Egyptians and Pharaoh were forced to let the people of God go. There was also the wonderful miracle of the crossing of the Red Sea. This feast would be a wonderful and tremendous time for the elders of Israel to share with the younger generation what had happened so long ago when Israel was captive in Egypt.

We know, therefore, that this would have been a great feast and a great time for the sharing of the Gospel, but we wonder, “Why did God insist that this feast be kept in the seventh month on the fifteenth day of the month? Why does God insist that this feast be kept in conjunction along with the feast of Ingathering? Why is this feast so closely linked to the final harvest feast, the third feast in God’s acceptable year? Why is it linked with the feast of Tabernacles? What is the spiritual dimension of this feast? What is the deeper spiritual meaning?”

We do know that Egypt represents, on the one hand, the world. It is a picture of the world; it is a picture of man’s bondage to sin. The Israelites who were in captivity and who were servants and slaves to Pharaoh are pictures of those who are in the bondage of their sin and are enslaved to sin and Satan, who is typified by Pharaoh. Then God works a great deliverance to deliver His people. Moses is a great type of the Lord Jesus Christ as he leads Israel through the Red Sea, which pictures salvation.

Yet could there be another meaning here? Could there be something that relates to the end of the world and to the time of Great Tribulation? We wonder this because we know that the third feast, the feast of Ingathering, the feast of Harvest, is definitely, without question, pointing to the time of the Great Tribulation. It is pointing to the time of the last season in God’s calendar, the last thing that is to be observed in the acceptable year of the Lord. It is a time when the great multitude, which no man can number, will be brought in. How can the feast of Tabernacles connect with this? How can it be related to our present day?

Egypt does picture the world in the first instance, but it also has a second spiritual meaning. We see this second meaning in Revelation 11:7-8. In this passage, the two witnesses are going to be discussed as they minister the Gospel from the churches and congregations of the world up until the time of the Great Tribulation. We read, speaking of the two witnesses:

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

We cannot miss what God is telling us because we are not doing the spiritualizing here. We are not saying that Jerusalem represents this or Babylon represents that, but God is very clearly and obviously telling us that the two witnesses were in the church and now they are dead. It is the time of the Great Tribulation; they have finished their testimony, and they have been overcome and killed. Their dead bodies signify that the church has now become a dead church and that the Holy Spirit has departed. Satan is ruling in the congregations of the world. It is the time of the falling away; the great apostasy is here (2 Thessalonians 2:3). Their dead bodies are lying in the street of the great city.

The great city is Jerusalem, which typifies the corporate church. God makes sure that we understand this, because the last half of the verse says, “Where also our Lord was crucified.” Where was the Lord Jesus Christ crucified? It was outside Jerusalem—that is the great city. Their dead bodies are lying in the street of this great city, where our Lord was crucified—Jerusalem.

Yet, is this not speaking of the earthly city Jerusalem over in the Middle East? No, it is a spiritual application that God is making and it is the corporate church beyond any question. It is not even up to debate—obviously and definitely, God is picturing the church in Revelation 11 by the two witnesses who minister the Gospel to the world throughout the Church Age until the point when they finish their testimony and the Church Age comes to a close. Then Satan ascends out of the bottomless pit and comes up. He is loosed and he overcomes the camp of the saints. He sets up shop within the churches; as 2 Thessalonians 2 reveals, he takes his seat as the man of sin “shewing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).

This dead church, this apostate church, this unfaithful church, which is the church of our day, God identifies spiritually to be Sodom and Egypt. This is exclusively the church of the Great Tribulation; not the church throughout the Church Age, but the dead church of the Great Tribulation. The church of our day is Egypt, God says. It is typifying Egypt.

Let us go to the book of Deuteronomy, which was written approximately fourteen hundred years before the coming of Christ. Deuteronomy 28 is a very frightening chapter where God outlines the consequences of disobedience for a people who would profess to be the people of God. Again and again, we see frightening language from verse 15 until the end of the chapter. God gets into the final judgment of Hell, but He also speaks of the time of the Great Tribulation. Verse 68, the last verse of the chapter, is dealing with the Great Tribulation. It says, speaking to the rebellious people of Israel, who are typifying the corporate church:

And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you.

That concludes the chapter. Let us look at this verse—”the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships.” Is there anywhere in the Bible, is there any place in Kings or Chronicles or Jeremiah or Isaiah, where we read that God packed up the nation of Israel onto ships? Is there anywhere that we read that they boarded ships, that they took shipping and traveled back to Egypt and there God unloaded the whole nation of Israel? Do we read that there they were then sold unto their enemies for bondmen and bondwomen and that no man bought them? Is there any historical account of this ever taking place or ever being fulfilled?

The answer is no; we do not read about that anywhere in the Bible. We read that when Israel was in the wilderness, they in their hearts returned into Egypt; but that is not getting onboard a ship or going back via shipping. We do not read that anywhere. We read in the book of Jeremiah that following the destruction of Jerusalem, there was a remnant that was left who desired to go down into Egypt. They especially desired it after the governor, whom the king of Babylon had established, was slain along with some Babylonians by a man named Ishmael and ten other men. We then read that the remnant went down into Egypt, but they did not take ships—they traveled by land. There was no transportation by ships in view. Therefore this verse, as it stands, has never been fulfilled historically; Israel was never literally packed onboard ships and brought back into Egypt.

Did God make a mistake then? Did He not mean what He said? Is this just some idle threat? We read in Deuteronomy 28:

What is the fulfillment of this? There must be a fulfillment; there must be a time when this verse is fulfilled in some way, whether literally or spiritually. It must have its fulfillment. This is a prophesy of God—He is declaring this; it is coming forth out of His mouth. He is stating it as fact, that this certainly will come to pass. “Israel, a rebellious people who have disobeyed My commandments, shall go back into Egypt.”

You can probably see the direction that this is heading and how this verse is fulfilled. It is fulfilled by the New Testament Israel of God, the corporate church, the Jerusalem “which now is” according to Galatians 4:25—not the Jerusalem above that points to the eternal church (Galatians 4:26), but the corporate church that has typically been composed of saved and unsaved individuals throughout the Church Age. At its end, it is overrun by unsaved people. The tares multiply exceedingly until finally, God brings the judgment of the Great Tribulation and judgment begins at the house of God, as 1 Peter 4:17 tells us. As Revelation 11:8 says, once the two witnesses are slain by Satan as he comes out of that bottomless pit during the short season of his loosing, which is the Great Tribulation, then the church becomes Egypt. Then God will bring them into Egypt again with ships.

When we look for the spiritual meaning of ships in the Bible, we come to realize that ships point to the church. When the mariners in the book of Jonah were casting Jonah overboard, it was a picture of those of Israel in the Old Testament church. When in Acts 27 the ship was destroyed and became shipwrecked, it was a picture of the corporate church being destroyed during the Great Tribulation by the assault of Satan. We read in 1 Timothy 1:19:

Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:

God relates faith that goes astray to being made shipwreck. The church has been typified by ships, and these ships have set sail to sail the waters of the seas, which are a picture of Hell. Fishermen were to fish off these ships. As the Gospel net was let down into the waters of this world and the catch of fish was to be taken in, this would point to those who were rescued from Hell. They come out of the water, which typifies Hell, and onto the safety of the ship. That ship has set sail for the Promised Land, for the new heavens and the new earth, and many have found refuge. They have heard the true and faithful preaching of the Gospel in the churches and congregations of this world throughout the many hundreds of years of the Church Age.

However, at its end, at the conclusion of the Church Age, the ship is no longer seaworthy. It is no longer on a straight course for the Promised Land, but its elders and pastors, those who are directing the course of the ship, are steering it in a course for Hell. James 3:4-5 speaks of the tongue as a little member, and it relates it to the helm of a ship; though it be little, it steers a big ship and sets the direction of the ship. Therefore, the ones who are the tongues of the body of Christ, those in the congregations who declare the Word of God, are steering and directing the course of that congregation. When they are not teaching faithfully or truthfully, when they are not bringing the whole counsel of God, that ship is not going to the Promised Land but it is on a course for Hell itself.

In the time of the Great Tribulation, all who are in the churches of this world are on ships that have set sail for Egypt. They might think that they are going to the Promised Land, they might think that they are sailing for Heaven itself, but God has finished the testimony of the church. He is not using the church or the ships any longer to bring blessing or to bring people into a saving relationship with Himself. Therefore, people are being loaded onto these ships and sailing for Egypt, where they will be in bondage to sin and where they will remain in captivity to their sins and to Satan. They will be bound there; they will be slaves, as this verse indicates—”there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen.” There is no freedom or salvation in view. The ships are like merchant ships dealing in slavery. The pastors and the elders have become slave traders bringing individuals back to Egypt, bringing them back into the bondage of sin, bringing them back to be under the wrath of God and subject to spend an eternity in Hell.

This is what God is indicating when He says in Revelation 11 that the church has become Egypt—it is a place of bondage, there is no other way to put it. In Exodus 20, as God speaks the Ten Commandments, He says in verses 1-2:

And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

“The house of bondage”—many are going into the house of God. They hear say that if you go there, you could be delivered from your sin. The preacher promises them, “Accept Christ, and you will be delivered from your sin.” However, there is no deliverance in our day in any church of the world. There are promises of this; there is great allurement with this kind of an idea. They promise life, but actually, there is nothing but increased captivity. There is bondage, there is slavery, and there is the house of bondage. That is what the house of God has become—the house of bondage. It has become Egypt, spiritually.

God says that when you return again to Egypt by these ships, by the churches and congregations, and when you are sold as slaves and as bondmen and bondwomen, no man shall buy you. Who is that man? That man is the Lord Jesus Christ. To buy is to redeem, and Christ bought a people for Himself when He went to the Cross. He has redeemed His people from their sins. He has purchased them and He has bought them, whereby they are no longer their own; they have been bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:20). Yet God says that once they are in Egypt, no man shall buy them. That is indicating that there will be absolutely no salvation whatsoever. The Lord Jesus Christ is not going to purchase any sinner who remains in Egypt, in the corporate church.

That is why God commands His people at this time, “Come out of her, My people. Come out of the churches and congregations of this world” (Revelation 18:4). Of course the child of God wants to be obedient, but even if you are not saved—if you doubt your salvation or if you know that you are not saved—you want to come out. You want to come out of that which has become Egypt so that you can be in a place where at least you might possibly be blessed by the hearing of the Word of God. You want to be in a place where possibly you could be saved and where possibly the Lord Jesus Christ might redeem you. It may not happen—God will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy (Romans 9:15)—but one thing is for certain: it will never happen in the church, which has become Egypt.