Bible Believers' Newsletter #038

"We focus on the PRESENT Truth - what Jesus is doing NOW . . ."

We greet you in the wonderful Name of our Lord Jesus Christ and appreciate your fellowship. This newsletter serves those of like precious faith and whosoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.

Esau/Edom, and the Trail of the Serpent

Our Newsletter, "Genocide by a Self-styled Mutant 'Master Race'", must have been too true to God's Word and what's happening world- wide, because about five subscribers canceled. Never mind, we've had more new subscribers. God's Word either preaches them in or It preaches them out. Jesus said, "miscegenation between the races of Cain and Abel which caused God send the Flood would repeat during His 'parousia' Coming". That is, since 1963.

Now I've chosen three Scriptures from which to draw a context for our sermon tonight.

Genesis 3:15, "I will put enmity (or hatred) between the Serpent and the woman, and between his seed and her seed;"

Malachi 1:2-4, "I have loved you, says the LORD. Yet you say, 'Wherein have You loved us?' 'Wasn't Esau your father Jacob's brother?' said the LORD: 'yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the jackals of the wilderness'.

Whereas Edom's descendants say, 'We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places'. (That's the self-styled Jew of today).

'THUS SAITH THE LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and men shall call them, The Land of Wickedness, and, Those Whom God Does Not Ever Forgive'." (That's what God thinks of their gangland today, and a prophecy of their fate).

I Peter 2:9-10, "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him Who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous Light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy".

God is a Separator, brethren. And those who are His children will not be offended at His Word. There's been a great battle going-on since the fall in the garden of Eden. And it's a story of jealousy between Lucifer and his children who have no inheritance on earth or in heaven, and Michael or Christ and His children who are joint heirs in the kingdom of God.

It's a story of sibling rivalry and a root of bitterness that was permitted to flourish. Throughout the Bible we see twins like Cain and Abel, Lucifer and Michael, Judas and Jesus, Darkness and Light or Esau and Jacob. In this lesson we will study Jacob and Esau.

The Israelites who ratified the Covenant at Sinai and the children born in their homes were entitled to citizenship. Israel came out of Egypt under the blood of the Lamb and God met with Moses on top of Mount Sinai in Saudi Arabia (not the Sinai Peninsula) as He had promised.

God made His covenant in Exodus 19:5-8, "If you will obey My voice by deeds, and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own peculiar treasure from among and above all people: for all the earth is Mine: And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests (or mediators in My Presence on behalf of other nations), a holy nation (separated and consecrated to the worship of God - and worship is not praying and hymn-singing, it's living the Life. True worship is having the Token or Life of Christ on display at all times). Tell these Words to the children of Israel".

And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and told them all these Words which the LORD commanded him.

And all the people answered together, and said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do. And Moses reported the words of the people to the LORD".

Then God summoned Moses, Aaron and his sons, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of Israel's elders to Mount Sinai, where Moses would enter the Presence and be alone with God for forty days and forty nights to receive the Ten Commandments on two tables of stone. But before they ascended, "Moses wrote all the Words of the LORD, and rising early in the morning, built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, representing Israel's twelve tribes.

And he sent young Israelite men, who offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD. And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins; and half of the blood he dashed against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people: and they said, 'All that the LORD has said will we do, and be obedient'.

And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, 'Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD has made with you according to these Words'" (Exodus 24:4-8, I Corinthians 11:25; Hebrews 10:28-29).

God established His nation under a blood-sealed covenant. Citizens who despised the covenant died without mercy by the hand of Israel on the evidence of two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 17:2-6).

There were, however, certain exceptions. Not everyone who came out of Egypt with Israel was entitled to citizenship in Israel. And a mixed multitude of races and beliefs tagged behind the Hebrews for the opportunity to escape slavery. These people were without faith and became a stumbling block to the children of Israel, lusting after the worldly comfort of Egypt, video games, garlic and leeks. Till they angered God Who sent them manna from heaven. And when they lusted after fresh meat, He sent quail in such abundance that in their greed they made themselves ill.

Paul tells us that although these all followed the Shekinah of the Angel of God's Presence, like we all follow the Message today, and they were all baptized in the Red Sea (or the Sea of Esau/Edom) as we're all baptized correctly in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, not His three Titles or Offices of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. And they all ate the same bread from heaven, as we all feed our souls upon the same Message; they all drank the life-giving water from the smitten rock as we are all anointed by the same Holy Spirit. Yet they still lusted after the world. Paul called them idolaters and murmurers. Jesus said that their names were removed from the Book of Life (I Corinthians 10:1-11; Hebrews 3:17; John 8:49).

Paul said that these things happened to them as an example for us. And as "all Israel is not Israel", all those who came out from the denominations by hearing the "Shout" of Matthew 25:6, Revelation 10:7 and 18:4, are not citizens of Spiritual Israel. Indeed, I am persuaded that very few of us are truly born-again.

Not only was Israel a mixed multitude that included those who were ineligible for citizenship naturally, for some were excluded on racial lines, but only three adult men who came out of Egypt were Spiritually citizens of Israel - Moses, Joshua and Caleb.

Turn to Exodus 23:20-33 because I want to demonstrate that God is a Separator. Follow in your Bibles as I ad lib. God tells Moses of the blessing and protection that will go before Israel because the Angel of His Presence will prepare the way. And provided they obey His instructions, nothing will stand before the Word of the Lord. Their material needs will be supplied, there will be no illness, and all of their battles will be victorious.

This is how it should be with the end-time Bride of Jesus Christ as we grow into maturity and come nearer to the end of the Gentile dispensation, ready for the manifestation of the Sons of God. But we've got to separate from all unbelief. We are still very much a mixed multitude.

As God could not bless Abraham until he separated from his heathen father, Terah, through the old man's passing, and from his nephew Lot, God can not bless Christ's Bride until we separate ourselves unto Him. God requires His perfect will in our lives. Abraham just started out with His permissive will. God called Abraham and his wife on a journey of faith, He didn't say, "Bring the family"!

Abraham is our type. He had to separate from Lot who followed the same Message of deliverance but was not God's elected. Lot types the foolish virgin who are saved through the tribulation. Christ's end-time Bride must separate from the foolish virgin who came out of Babylon by the midnight cry of Matthew 25:6: the Message of the prophet of Malachi 4:5-6 and Revelation 10:7.

We will always have the foolish virgin in our midst. And too many among us are foolish but not virgin. Virgin in the Spiritual sense of the holiness of a life sanctified and consecrated to God. These are "the little foxes that spoil the vine". Don't reject them, the Word will discern between you. They can't follow It, that's why there are so many divisions among us today. Can't you see this is of the Lord's doing? There's no division in the elect, but most of us not of the elect. Otherwise they'd be in agreement with us.

Reading on in Exodus 23 God tells Moses, the Angel of His Presence will guide Israel into the land of "the Amorites, and the Hittites and the Perizzites, the Canaanites, Hivites and the Jebusites". He says, "You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in your land which you will confiscate from them." These were the Serpent seed children of Cain through Esau.

Jesus stated emphatically, "My sheep receive My Word, and will not follow a stranger" (John 10:1-5). He said, "After the opening of the Seven Seals, false anointed ones and false prophets will show great signs and wonders, but that His elect could not be deceived on the revealed Word" (Matthew 24:24). And Paul said, "If someone can't receive the faith or understanding after two admonitions you know the election's off" (Titus 3:9-11).

In Church last week, we spoke about the signs Jesus promised would follow the believer's faith. Mark 16 was vindicated in Acts 28 and Paul was so full of the Holy Ghost, that when the snake took hold of his hand to escape the flames, he just shook it back into the fire and carried on with his work. Paul was not prepared to reason with the natural circumstances of his situation against a promise of God's Word. He was full of the Word, which is the Spirit in a form we can by faith receive.

Brother Branham said, "Give me a Church full of the Holy Ghost. God will do in one year what all theologists failed to do in two thousand years. You wait till the anointing of the Church really strikes home. They have faith, the little remnant. After the doors of the Gentiles are closed. Oh, God will anoint a church then".

Well, what are we waiting for? Let's practice, so we're ready for the manifestation of the Sons of God. But we're not going to get ready uniting with all the Message denominations. God preserve us from that! We don't want to dilute the Spirit: sitting down to eat and drink and rising to play with the mixed Message multitude. Yet periodically some do-gooder sounds the trumpet for those who don't agree on the Message, to walk together anyway. Why, when the Holy Spirit has separated us from one another?

As a child I attended Sunday school where we sang a chorus,

"Jesus died for all the children, All the children in the world; Red and yellow, black and white, All are precious in His Sight. Jesus died for all the children in the world."

Color of skin has nothing to do with it, but that song is a lie. Jesus did not die for all the children in the world. He died only for those children who were of Adam's race - and them alone.

Remember, our subject is citizenship in Israel. The natural types the Spiritual. Certain individuals in Israel's midst were excluded from citizenship. Today this applies to Spiritual Israel, the true Church. In every assembly there are three kinds of believer - the genuine believer or elect, the make-believer who is deceived, or a deceiver, and the unbeliever or sinner.

All natural Serpent's seed found in the Promised Land were to be killed - from the innocent babe at its mother's breast to the old men and women (Deuteronomy 7:1-6). They were excluded from Israel. As natural Serpent seed are the descendants of Cain the hybrid son of the Serpent and Eve, Spiritual serpent's seed are the bastard children of Satan's false church which hybrid God's Word with man- made traditions. They'll have their part in the Lake of Fire.

Certain of Israel's relations were also excluded from citizenship, a type of the foolish virgin, and also the unbeliever in our midst today. Spiritual Israel are a separated people, united to God and with one another by faith, not by artificial man-made fellowship, however well-intended.

There was another group who, like the Canaanites, were begotten by incest or adultery. Let's look at these "strangers"

Deuteronomy 23:2-8, "No one born of incest or adultery (a mamser), or any of his descendants to ten generation shall enter into the congregation of the LORD.

No Ammonite or Moabite shall EVER enter the congregation of the LORD; even after the tenth generation: because they did not meet you with bread and water when you came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor from Mesopotamia, to curse you.

Nevertheless the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam; but the LORD God turned the curse into a blessing to you, because your God loved you. You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity so long as you live".

(The Ammonite and Moabite is excluded from Israelite citizenship even if they married a Jewess. This did not apply to an Ammonitess or Moabitess (such as Ruth) as the lineage follows the male line).

"You shall not abhor an Edomite; for Esau was your brother: you shall not abhor an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in his land".

(In an upcoming study we will see that Edom is accursed of God and identify who he is today).

"The grandchildren of the Egyptians who came with you out of Egypt may enter the congregation of the LORD".

Who were these "strangers" in Israel? The dominant principles of legislation concerning them are expressed in Deuteronomy 10:18 and Leviticus 19:33-34, "If a stranger sojourn with you in your land, you shall not vex him. But the stranger who dwells with you shall be as one born among you and you shall love him as yourself . . ." This treatment of the stranger is based partly on historic recollection and partly on the duty of the Israelite to his God.

Much misunderstanding has arisen because English Bible translators have commonly used the word "stranger" for any person, regardless of race, who is unknown in the immediate circle of a given family. Had they exercised greater care, they would have presented this subject in an entirely different light.

Four different Hebrew words have been translated "stranger" in the Authorized Version. They are: (1) ger; (2) toshabh; (3) nokri; (4) zar.

In Leviticus 19:33-34, the "stranger that dwells with you shall be as one home-born". A temporary inhabitant or newcomer, racially identical with Israel but lacking inherited rights, was called the ger, and conceded rights. The word was used of the Patriarchs in Palestine, the Israelites in Egypt, Levites dwelling among the Israelites (Deuteronomy 18:6; Judges 17:7), and particularly of free aliens residing among the Israelites.

Historical circumstances made the position of the resident alien important from the foundation of the nation. A "mixed multitude" went up with Israel from Egypt, and after the conquest, Israelites and the races of Palestine lived side by side throughout the land. Solomon numbered 53,600, whom he put under tribute (II Chronicles 2:17-18; I Kings 9:20-23).

In nationality, the freeman followed his father, so that the son of a ger and an Israelitess was also a ger, contrary to the false teaching of the Talmud followed by the Pharisees today (Leviticus 24:10-22). Special care was to be taken to do him no judicial wrong (Deuteronomy 1:16; 24:17; 27:19). In Law, the ger or gerim, were to have equality of justice with native Israelites (Leviticus 18:26; 20:2; 24:10-22; Numbers 35:15).

A free Israelite who became his slave was subject to redemption by a near kinsman at any time on payment of a fair price - Leviticus 25:47-55. This passage and Deuteronomy 28:43-47 contemplate the possibility of a ger's becoming wealthy, but the greater number of legal provisions regard him as probably poor.

Because the ger would be naturally disadvantaged through his alienage, he becomes one of the favorites of a legislation that gives special protection to the weak and helpless. Thus provision is made for him to participate in tithes.

Deuteronomy 14:28-29, "Every third year you must use your entire tithe for local welfare programs. Give it to the Levites who have no inheritance, and the stranger, to widows and orphans within your town so they can eat and be satisfied; and then your God will bless you and your work". (Also see Deuteronomy 26:12).

The gerim also shared the gleanings of various sorts and forgotten sheaves (like the saints of the Seven Church Ages of part-Word) (Leviticus 19:10; 23:22; Deuteronomy 24:19-22). And if he hired himself out, his employer was bound to refrain from oppression (Deuteronomy 24:14).

He was expected to keep the Law, and nearly all the main holy days applied to the gerim - he was to rest on the sabbath, to rejoice on Weeks and Tabernacles, observe the Day of Atonement, and to eat no leavened bread on the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He was forbidden to eat the Passover until circumcised, and was then subject to all the rules of purification against uncleanness like any Israelite. The status and privileges of the ger derive from the bond of hospitality in which a guest is inviolable with claims of protection and full sustenance in return for loyalty (Genesis 18:1-8; Judges 19:16-21).

From the vision granted to Ezekiel 47:22, we see the gerim are assigned an inheritance in the land among the Israelites. "Divide the land for an inheritance for yourselves, and the strangers that sojourn and have children born among you. They shall be to you as born in the country among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel".

The ger type the elect Gentiles who, like Japheth, come under the same covering as Shem (Genesis 9:27). These privileges are not extended to those covered by toshabh, nokri and zar.

The Hebrew word toshabh is used to identify one who is different, in an unspecified way to the ger, like an alien or estranged person. Perhaps a less permanent sojourner like a resident guest visiting the house of a priest in Israel who was denied further rights. They may not, under any circumstances, eat the Passover or any of the "holy" things of a priest (Exodus 12:45; Leviticus 22:10). In contrast to the gerim, His children could be bought as perpetual slaves with absolutely no recourse to redemption - the Law of Jubilee did not apply to them (Leviticus 25:45). Toshabh, while permitted to reside in Israel, had no legal status except in respect of justice, beyond which he had no rights whatsoever.

The word nokri (ben nekhar), covers everything of alien or foreign character, regardless of the place of residence, and is defined by the context in which it appears. It embraces the Canaanites, who descended from Ham's incestuous behavior, and the Moabites and Ammonites who descended from Lot's cohabitation with his own daughters. These nokri were strictly taboo with no rights or privileges in the Israel community. Their status was that of a bastard - Hebrew: mamser, meaning one of mixed or spurious origins - being specifically prevented by Divine Decree, from entering the congregation of the Lord even to his tenth generation (Deuteronomy 23:2-3). That is, never! While the subject of marriage between the ger and the toshabh is not mentioned, marriage with the nokri is positively forbidden (Genesis 24:3). The Serpent's seed are Nokri.

The Hebrew word zar, takes its definition, like the other words, from the context. The word appears in connection with enemy aliens or a foreign race (Serpent's seed) with no rights whatsoever in Israel. Even justice is denied the zar. In all Israel's national disasters, the zar is reckoned the main contributing factor. And in each of the following three examples this judgment has befallen Israel because like Eve, Israel has broken God's Covenant. Isaiah 1:7, "your country is ruined and desolate, your cities are burned, and while you watch helplessly strangers (zar) destroy and plunder everything in sight . . ." Hosea 5:7, "They have dealt treacherously against the Lord, bearing strange (zar) children." Hosea 7:9, "Strangers (zar) have devoured his strength, and he knows it not." (See also Leviticus 26:16, 32; Isaiah 17:10; 25:2, 5; 28:21; 29:5, 43:12; 61:5).

One English word "stranger" thus translated from the four Hebrew words tends to obscure the true relationship required by God in dealing with other people. And in a similar way, the English word "Coming" translated from two Greek words "erchomai" and "parousia" has produced great confusion among nominal believers, most of whom actually imagine the Man from Galilee will physically descend from the clouds, when this is not what the Bible is teaching.

Let's not be too hasty to amalgamate with every group that claims to follow the same teaching. Give them the Word test. We can only know God as we understand the Logos, not as we agree on the Rhema. As Paul observed, the letter is death, whereas the Spirit is Life.

The question that arises is what was the status of the Edomites?

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Brother Anthony Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister. He has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations in various countries. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to minister in your church.

For Further Information Contact:

Bible Believers' Church
958 Victoria Road, West Ryde, NSW 2114, Australia
e-mail: ags@biblebelievers.org.au
URL: http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/