As our study continues in the book of Genesis, let us return to chapter 45, where we read in verse 10:
And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me…
We have been trying to understand the spiritual meaning of the word “Goshen.” It is important to understand what God is referring to when He refers to “the land of Goshen.” Unfortunately, when we looked up the word “Goshen” in the Strong’s Concordance, it did not help us much because it is a word that is most likely of Egyptian origin. We cannot look up the meaning of the word “Goshen,” and we cannot discover its meaning from its root or from anywhere else. However, in the Concordance, there are some other words that are close to the word “Goshen,” and we have looked at those.
For instance, “Goshen” is Strong’s number 1657, but Strong’s number 1656 is the word “Goshem.” “Goshem” is spelled identically as the word “Goshen,” except for the last letter; the last consonant is not a Hebrew “n” but an “m.” We have learned that the word “Goshem” deals with rain. It is a word that is translated “rained upon.”
We have also seen in the Concordance that the words Strong’s numbers 1652 and 1653, “Gasham” and “Geshem,” are words that are also dealing with rain, but these words are dealing with an “abundance of rain” or a “great rain,” rain such as fell in the days of Elijah (I Kings 18:41, 44-45). In Elijah’s day, they were praying for rain, and after three years, rain finally came. The word used in those verses is the word “Geshem,” a word close to “Goshen,” but different because the last consonant is not an “n” but an “m.”
We need more evidence to be more certain of a word’s meaning, however. We have seen that there is a possibility that the term “land of Goshen” is pointing to a land of rain. There is evidence in the Bible itself that this is the case, because the Bible refers to it as a place of good pasture. It was called the “best of the land” (Genesis 47:6). This is what Pharaoh had proclaimed to Joseph—“Bring your family and I will give them of the best of the land in Egypt, the land of Goshen.” They would raise their cattle and their flocks in the land of Goshen, because there would be feed for them there, and they would be able to graze in that land.
So, we have been able to determine that there is a good possibility that Goshen is pointing to a place where there is rain. As we have been seeing throughout this whole historical parable, this statement, on a spiritual level, is dealing with the time of the Great Tribulation.
Let us review a few things. We have learned that Joseph revealing himself after two years, as he does in this chapter, points to the dividing point of the Great Tribulation, which we are now living in. We have also learned that Joseph revealing all of these hidden truths to his brethren is pointing to the time when Christ will reveal the hidden truths of the Bible to His brethren, the body of believers.
We have seen that the call of Joseph is “Haste ye, go tell my father that I am alive in Egypt and bring him down. Come down to me in Egypt, and you will dwell in the land of Goshen, the land that is rained upon.” We have learned that as God calls His people out of the churches, He calls them to Egypt, and Egypt typifies the world. So now, at this time, the true believers, in obedience to God’s Word, are coming out of the church and going into the world, and what is going on out there in the world? Out in the world, the latter rain is falling. Out there, outside of the churches and congregations, the land is being rained upon.
Is there any rain falling in the churches and congregations? Is any latter rain falling there? Is there any Gospel that God is blessing there? The answer is no.
We can see how all of this fits together, if the land of Goshen is connected to the land of rain. The true believers of our day are being called out to a place where they will experience the latter rain. This would be the spiritual teaching.
Then in verse 11, Joseph says:
And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.
Again, just to emphasize this one more time, Joseph is revealing to his brethren that there are five more years of famine. As we have learned, Acts 7:11 assures us that this famine is picturing the Great Tribulation. There God refers to this great dearth that came upon the world in Joseph’s day as “Great Affliction,” which are the same two Greek words “Great Tribulation” that we see in Matthew 24:21, among other places.
To summarize what we have learned, Joseph is a type of Christ who is now revealing himself in the midst of the Great Tribulation. This does not take place at the actual middle point of the Great Tribulation, but at the dividing point, after two years. Joseph is telling them, “There are five more years of famine.” Historically, they could then know exactly when that famine would come to an end. It was currently 1877 B.C., and five more years would make it 1872 B.C. Therefore, the brethren of Joseph, the sons of Jacob, would know that there would be no more famine after 1872 B.C.
As we continue to look for the spiritual meaning, like we have been doing all along, if Joseph is a picture of Christ who is revealing information and informing them of the duration of this historical famine, then this also means that Christ will be telling us, spiritually, how long the Great Tribulation will last.
From this information, we cannot arrive at a timeline, but we can understand that God is telling us that in the dividing point of the Great Tribulation, He will reveal to His people when the famine will come to an end. We are going to know this information, and I think that we can say this with great confidence. God is going to reveal the time duration of the Great Tribulation. Joseph told his brethren that the famine had been two years in the land, and that there would be five more years. They would have known that the beginning point was 1879 B.C., and that the ending point would be 1872 B.C.
Has God revealed to us today the beginning point of the Great Tribulation? Will He reveal the ending point of the Great Tribulation? If He does give us this information, what else would that mean? It would mean that we would know when the world would end, because once the Great Tribulation is over, there will be nothing else that will follow. It will be the end of the world.
Through this historical parable that took place some 3900 years ago, God is letting us know that His plan all along has been to reveal the timing of the Great Tribulation and the end of the world, and that He will do so in the dividing point of the Great Tribulation. Therefore, His people will come to know certain dates, just as these Israelites came to know when the famine began and when it would end, before it actually ended.
It is important to point out, however, that they did not have an understanding of the famine before it began—they learned this information after two years into the famine. This is the same as our day. Neither did we understand these issues before the time of Great Tribulation. But now that we are in the midst of it, God is opening up His Word and revealing these things.
Is it not interesting that, rather suddenly, we began talking with a lot more surety about 1988 as the beginning point of the Great Tribulation, and that we now have a possible date for the end of the world in 2011? I do not believe that this is something that has come from the mind of man. I believe that this has come from the mind of God.
God is telling us that if we apply the spiritual principle that we have been applying all along, then we will see that Christ, Joseph, will reveal to his brethren exactly how long the famine will be. It is very significant that God is opening up these truths at this time, and that we are hearing these kinds of things at this particular time in history.
Getting back to verse 11, Joseph says:
And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.
We saw that the expression “come to poverty” dealt with sleeping. Proverbs 20:13 says:
Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
Again, we see the same spiritual context. It is a time of revelation; it is a time of opening up the understanding of the people of God. It is a time of spiritually having our eyes open.
Joseph is saying, “Come into Egypt, for if you remain in Canaan you will come to poverty.” Spiritually, God is indicating that anyone who will remain in the church will not have their eyes opened. It is as though they are asleep; and when someone is asleep, their eyes are closed. “Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty.” The command is to open your eyes and see the truth of the Word of God. The time has come to understand these things that God is revealing to His people.
This is what Genesis 45:12 is saying. We read:
And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you.
“Your eyes see.” Joseph is indicating to his brethren, “You can see me. I am not a vision; I am a real man. I am Joseph, your brother. I am the ruler of Egypt.” It was such a phenomenal thing for him to be standing before them as second in command to Pharaoh that it would have been very easy for them to disbelieve it. Therefore, he assures them, “Your eyes see that it is my mouth speaking to you. This is not a trick or a mistake of some kind. I am Joseph, whom you sold as a slave into Egypt.”
Again, this is spiritually pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is speaking to His people. He is talking to the elect of God and saying, “You see; your eyes see the words of My mouth.”
Since Joseph is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, the phrase “my mouth” points directly to the Word of God. We see the truth of God’s Word during this period of time. We recognize that this is the very Word of God, and that it is to be obeyed. Therefore, it is Joseph’s mouth that speaks unto them.
The whole idea that God has ended the Church Age is built upon the Word of God. I do not remember anyone who is currently seeing these things in the Scriptures ever saying, “I had a dream,” or, “I received a vision or a tongue,” or anything along that line. I also have not seen them taking a verse and comparing it to what other theologians have said about it. If this were the case, then this doctrine would be built only upon the words of men.
Is our understanding of this doctrine based on someone who has said, “Now this theologian said that the Church Age will come to an end”? No, our understanding of the end of the Church Age is based on 2 Thessalonians 2, Matthew 24, Revelation 11, Revelation 13, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and we could go on and on. It is based on the Word of God. It is the Scriptures that are confirming and teaching these things. It is God’s Word; it is His mouth that is speaking to us.
Then we read in verses 13-15:
And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him.
We have seen that when Joseph fell upon Benjamin’s neck, this related to the parable of the prodigal son. The prodigal son was lost, and it so happened that this parable occurred at a time when there was a mighty famine in the land. The prodigal son remembered that the servants of his father’s household had more than enough to eat, and he determined to return to his father. Then when he was still a great way off, his father saw him, ran towards him, and what did he do? He fell upon his neck, and there was a great show of emotion and compassion (Luke 15:11-24).
This is what Joseph is doing as he weeps upon Benjamin’s neck. It is an indication that God is now showing compassion. God is still a merciful God. He had closed things up for the first part of the Great Tribulation; He was not revealing truth or blessing His Word at that time. It was a horrible time. But now, He is showing compassion to Benjamin (who typifies the elect) and to all the Israelites, to all the brethren of Joseph.
Now let us read verse 16, which says:
And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh’s house, saying, Joseph’s brethren are come: and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants.
That word “fame” is normally translated as “voice.” It has to do with hearing the sound or the report. The “report” was heard in Pharaoh’s house.
We have seen that Pharaoh typifies God in this particular historical context. Does the Pharaoh always typify God? No. Did the Pharaoh in the book of Exodus typify God? No, he was a representation of Satan as God said to him, “Let My people go,” and he would not, but hardened his heart (Exodus 10:1-3).
Does this Pharaoh here in Genesis 45 typify God? Yes. Is this not the Pharaoh who lifted Joseph out of prison? And is not Joseph a type of Christ? Who does this Pharaoh typify then? If he lifted Joseph out of prison, who was he representing? Did Satan ever bring Christ out of judgment? The prison that Joseph was in represented Hell, and who but God could have lifted the Lord Jesus Christ out of Hell? After Christ had paid the fullness of the penalty for the sins of His people, then He was resurrected. When Joseph was lifted up, it was with haste that he was brought out of prison by this Pharaoh.
We do not read anything negative about this particular Pharaoh. To our knowledge, he was an excellent king and a great lord over the land of Egypt. He was one of the nicest rulers that we read about in the Bible. We tend to think of some of the other rulers like Nebuchadnezzar, who said more than once, “Cut them to pieces and I will make their houses a dunghill” (Daniel 2:1-5 and 3:28-29). These are the types of rulers that we usually read about in the Bible.
However, we read nothing like that of this Pharaoh. Even when he had a disturbing dream and could find no one to interpret it, he did not make a decree to kill all the wise men in Egypt as Nebuchadnezzar had done (Daniel 2:12). He was, on a natural level at least, a very good man. As we have learned, this Pharaoh typifies God the Father. We have consistently seen throughout these several chapters of Genesis that he is a picture of God.
Now all of Pharaoh’s house, which refers to the Kingdom of God, has heard that Joseph’s brethren have come. This report is reaching the Kingdom of God. This information is being shared, and it pleases Pharaoh and his servants well.
The phrase “pleased me well” is also found in Deuteronomy 1:22-24, which says:
And ye came near unto me every one of you, and said, We will send men before us, and they shall search us out the land, and bring us word again by what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come. And the saying pleased me well: and I took twelve men of you, one of a tribe: And they turned and went up into the mountain, and came unto the valley of Eshcol, and searched it out.
When something pleases God well, then that means that it is in accord with the will of God and in obedience to His Word. This is the only thing that can please God. When Christ was being baptized, there was the voice of the Father from Heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16-17). The Lord Jesus Christ pleased Him well because Christ was perfectly obedient. He was sinless; He always did the will of God. That is what pleases God—when there is obedience to His Word.
Genesis 45:17 goes on to say:
And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan;
At this point, Pharaoh speaks directly to Joseph. He does not speak to Reuben or Judah or any of the sons of Israel, he speaks directly to Joseph and says, “Say unto thy brethren.” There is a chain of command in which Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, speaks to Joseph and says, “Go tell your brethren these things.”
We are saying that Pharaoh typifies the Father, and Joseph typifies the Son Jesus. Do we read anywhere in the Bible where God tells the Lord Jesus Christ in essence to “Go tell your brethren these things”? Let us look at John 17:8. This is Christ speaking, and He says:
For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them…
Jesus is saying, “I received the Words from the Father, and I have given those Words to them.” It is just like Pharaoh saying to Joseph, “Go tell them; say to them.” Joseph is receiving the words from Pharaoh, and now he will go and speak those words to his brethren, just as the Lord Jesus received the words from the Father and spoke them to us and the disciples.
And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan;
This sounds very forceful. It sounds as though Pharaoh is making it a decree, as though Pharaoh is speaking with the authority of the throne of Egypt.
Egypt just happens to be the greatest nation in all the world at this time and would be for some time to come, all because of the wonderful fact that Joseph was placed in the prison and was able to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. Egypt had corn when the rest of the world did not. It did not matter how many men the other nations had in their armies at that time; if they did not have corn to feed their army, then they were not going to be a very mighty nation. Egypt had food to feed its army, and we can say without any question that they were the mightiest nation upon the earth at that time because of Joseph’s revelation of Pharaoh’s dreams. Egypt became the greatest country on earth and the most glorious country in the world.
Now, Pharaoh hears that Joseph’s brethren are come. Do we have an understanding of Pharaoh’s opinion toward Joseph? We can easily see that the Pharaoh would have thought very highly of Joseph. He had made Joseph his right hand man. Joseph had proved himself to be wise and discreet; he had given counsel to Pharaoh that was being worked out exactly as he had predicted it would. There had been seven years of plenty and now there was a famine that followed exactly on its heels. Based on what Joseph had revealed to Pharaoh, the Pharaoh had made plans to store up plentiful grain so that there would be a great provision and supply for the years of famine.
Joseph’s brethren are come, and Pharaoh is saying, “Let us give Joseph whatever he wants for a few dozen people. Let us give him the best of the land; let us put them all in the land of Goshen.” Pharaoh says in verses 17-18:
… This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan; And take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land.
Joseph’s family had the best possible relationship with this Pharaoh because of Joseph. Because of Joseph, Pharaoh was going to watch over them with great care and concern and provide for them. Pharaoh commands them, “Come unto me.”
This sounds very familiar to us because it is what the Lord Jesus Christ commanded in Matthew 11:28-30. We read there:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
“Come unto Me, and you will find rest and salvation. Come unto Me.” We are living in a time of Great Tribulation, a time when many are greatly burdened with trials and afflictions. God is speaking to all of those who are in the churches and congregations and saying to them, “Come unto Me. You are heavy laden. You are facing a yoke that is terrible, because you are, spiritually speaking, in a land where there is no blessing of God. You are in a place where is there is a spiritual famine of hearing the Words of the Lord (Amos 8:11).” Christ is commanding, “Come unto Me.”
Pharaoh is saying through Joseph, “Come unto me. I will give you the best of the land. You will eat the good of the land; you will have the fat of the land. Come unto me, and you will find rest unto your souls.”
This is the same cry that is going forth right now in our day. God is sending His Word, to all who will hear, that it is time to leave the churches and congregations.
In Isaiah, there is a verse that helps us to understand what God has in view with the phrase, “I will give you the good of the land.” Isaiah 1:19-20 says:
If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
This all comes down to the authority of the Word of God, the Bible—to the fact that God is issuing forth a command, and that He requires obedience to it.
If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
“Come unto Me: and I will give you the good of the land.” Come out of Babylon—come out of the churches and congregations—and be nourished by the Lord Jesus Christ. Spiritually, this would be eating of the good of the land. This is the cry that, once again, is going out.
Then in Genesis 45:19, Pharaoh says to Joseph (who will relay this to his brethren):
Now thou art commanded, this do ye; take you wagons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come.
“Thou art commanded”—Pharaoh’s command to Jacob and his family was for them to come into Egypt. They did not have to obey. They could have gone back to Canaan and remained there. They did not have to listen to this Pharaoh. Joseph would have, most likely, protected them from any harm from this Pharaoh had they chosen not to obey him. However, this was a command: “Thou art commanded.”
Now, what if they had disobeyed? What if they had gone back and stayed in Canaan? If they had returned to Canaan and had remained there, they and their families would have starved. They would have suffered severe hunger. Eventually, they and their households and all of their flocks would have perished in the land of Canaan. Therefore, the wise thing would have been to obey the command of Pharaoh and to leave Canaan and enter into Egypt.
When God gives commands in the Bible, He always expects them to be obeyed. The Bible is a book of commands, a book of laws. The whole Bible has commandments throughout. The Ten Commandments—thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal; honor thy father and thy mother, etc.—are all commandments of God (Exodus 20:1-17).
There are many more commandments in the Bible. For one, God commands His people not to drink. It is interesting to note how God gives us this command—He says in a parable that it is not for kings to drink wine (Proverbs 31:4). Still, it is a commandment, and we understand it as a commandment, even though it is written in parabolic form.
God also commands for men not to have long hair and for women not to teach (1 Corinthians 11:14 and 1 Timothy 2:12). God gives commandment after commandment in His Word.
Another example is the commandments that He gives regarding the Sunday Sabbath. In Isaiah 58, He tells us to “turn away thy foot from the Sabbath,” and that is a commandment.
We are accountable to God for our obedience, or lack of it. God commands us all these things, and we know that when God commands something, it is very serious and extremely important.
Let us turn to John 14:15, which says:
If ye love me, keep my commandments.
“If ye love Me”—this is conditional, and it helps us to understand whether or not we do love God. Do you love God? Do I love Him? Then let us ask ourselves the question, “Am I keeping His commandments, or am I going in a way that is not right—a way that is disobedient to the commands of God?” Christ says, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.”
Let us also look at John 15:14, where we read:
Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
“Whatsoever I command you”—that word “whatsoever” is a very important word. There are some who like certain commandments. They build whole religions and gospels around those particular commandments; they do not mind obeying those commandments. However, Jesus says that if you love Him, you will keep His commandments, and that means all of His commandments.
Again He is saying here, “If you are My friends, then you will do whatsoever I command you—even if you do not like it or if it is something that disturbs you. ‘Whatsoever’ means whatsoever. If you are Abraham and I tell you to take your son Isaac and sacrifice him on an altar, if you love Me and if you are My friend, you will do it.” Abraham did do that because he was a child of God. God gave him a heart that was desirous to do His will, a heart that wanted to be obedient. That is the nature of a true child of God. “Whatsoever I command you…”
Let us turn to Matthew 28, where we read of the Great Commission. Christ says in verses 19-20:
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you…
That is part of the Great Commission; “Whatsoever I have commanded you,” we are to teach.
Some people say, “I will teach the Gospel. I will bring the whole counsel of God. However, I am uneasy about this ‘end of the Church Age’ doctrine; I am not going to teach that.” Those people have just violated the Word of God, the Great Commission. God says we are not to pick and choose. We are not to say, “Well, I like this particular part of the Gospel, but I do not like that part of the Gospel.” No, we are to bring the whole counsel of God—whatsoever He has commanded us (Acts 20:27).
This is what God is saying to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:6-7. We read there:
Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.
Again, we see that word “whatsoever.” It was necessary for God to say that to Jeremiah. Jeremiah was the prophet who was going to have to bring the bad news that God was judging His people. He was the prophet who had to bring the news that the Spirit of God had left Judah, and that God was bringing the Babylonians upon them.
We know that all of this relates to our present time of the Great Tribulation. God was saying this to Jeremiah, but He is also saying it to each one of us, because we are all believers. We are all sent. Therefore, it says here:
Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.
Whatsoever God commands us, we are to speak. We are seeing, once again, in Genesis 45 that God is dealing with the time of Great Tribulation. Pharaoh is now saying to Israel, to the sons of Jacob, “ ‘Thou art commanded, this do ye.’ Bring your father and return to Egypt. Come into Egypt.”
This is a command of God, just like Revelation 18:4, which says:
…Come out of her, my people…
This is a command of God. Now some people say, “I understand. I agree that we are to obey God’s commandments. When God says, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ I am to obey that. When He says, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ or ‘Thou shalt not lie,’ I am to obey that, too. But when God says, ‘Come out of Babylon,’ or when Pharaoh says to the Israelites of that day, ‘Thou art commanded,’ that does not impact me. That is not a commandment to me. Maybe as you spiritualize the Bible or approach it with your own kind of hermeneutic, then it says, ‘Thou art commanded.’ However, your hermeneutic means nothing to me.”
Unfortunately for those people, they are still required to obey that commandment. Maybe they do not understand it, maybe they do not recognize it as a commandment or maybe they even refuse to recognize it as a commandment, but that does not change the fact that it is a commandment of God.
When we dig into a verse or a passage of the Bible, we uncover the spiritual meaning. In this case, we see that this commandment is coming from Pharaoh (who represents God), and that it is being spoken to Joseph and to his brethren (which we see represent the body of believers). That spiritual dimension has as much authority and weight as the plain, literal statement, if not more.
To see this, let us go to Luke 17 and look at the account of the ten lepers. We have looked at this before, but it is the best passage in the Bible to prove that when God has an underlying spiritual meaning, we are at fault if we do not obey that spiritual meaning. We might not understand it, but if we fail to obey, we are at fault and we are guilty and we have broken the Word of God. Luke 17:11-17 says:
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…
There is the commandment. It is an imperative: “Go show yourselves unto the priests.” The passage continues:
…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?
Where did those other nine lepers go? What was the command? What did Jesus say to them? “Go show yourselves unto the priests,” and that is what they did. They went to the temple to find a priest to show themselves to. We do not have to dig too deeply into this. That is exactly where they went.
Yet one, the Samaritan, returns. He falls down at Jesus’ feet and gives Him thanks. Jesus says, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?” Then verse 18 says:
There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.
They obeyed the commandment; they went to the temple. However, they did not give glory to God.
In the book of Leviticus, God lays out laws regarding a leper showing himself to the priest on the day of his cleansing (Leviticus 14:1-32). Each and every one of those laws, spiritually, points to the Lord Jesus Christ, with leprosy pointing to our sin.
A leper on the day of his cleansing goes to Christ. That is the spiritual meaning, the spiritual dimension. The ten lepers were commanded, “Go show yourselves unto the priests.” Nine obeyed the plain, literal statement of the Word of God, yet they failed to give glory to God. The tenth man, the Samaritan, had started on his way with the other nine; and though he probably had no clue what he was doing, once he saw he was cleansed of his leprosy, he ran back to the Lord Jesus Christ and in great joy fell down, giving Him thanks.
This is a wonderful picture of obedience to the Word of God through seeing the deeper, spiritual meaning. The command, “Go show yourselves unto the priests” means, “Go to the great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ (Hebrews 4:14).”
God gives a hidden command in the book of Leviticus: go show yourself to the priests, to Jesus. Jesus refers to the same command without explanation to these ten individuals, yet when one returns to Him and falls down on his knees, we see there was a deeper, spiritual meaning. Christ was asking the question, “Where are the nine?” Those nine failed to give glory to God.
“Come out of her, My people” is a commandment. It is a commandment referring to Babylon. What does Babylon represent? Some fail to acknowledge the truth of what God’s Word says, but we know that Babylon is representing the church that has become unfaithful, a harlot (Isaiah 1:21). God commands, “Come out of her.” You can plead ignorance. You can say, “That does not mean anything to me,” just like those nine lepers did. You can conclude, “I am looking for a plain literal statement.” However, in doing so, you will fail to give glory to God.
Pharaoh is telling Joseph to say to his brethren, “Thou art commanded. Thou art commanded to get your family and to come into Egypt.” That is the commandment of God to each one of those who are in the churches and congregations. We are to leave the church and go out into the world, under the care and protection of the Lord Jesus Christ.