Prof Zebulon
No E13
E)
The Lord works things out quite ironically sometimes, especially
concerning His chosen people, the Jews.
A very good example is Jacob, whose name was later changed to
We will now look at how he “struggled”
to find a suitable bride.
As we know, Jacob wanted Rachel for his bride, but the Lord had
other plans. God wanted to bring forth
from Jacob, the twelve tribes of
Jacob worked seven years for the hand of Rachel and when the
seven years were up, Rachel's father,
Laban gave Jacob Leah instead of Rachel (deceit) saying that Leah was the first
born and therefore must be the first one to get married. Jacob had to work another seven years to get
Rachel and he did just that. During that
time, Leah bore Jacob four children: Reuben,
Simeon, Levi and Judah. Rachel,
when she saw that she was unable to bear children (temporarily) she was jealous
of her sister so she gave Jacob Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid and Bilhah bore two
children to Jacob: Dan and Naphtali.
Now Leah, through envy when she saw that she could no longer bare
children to Jacob, she gave him her handmaid, Zilpah who bore two sons for Jacob : Gad and Asher. After that, Leah bore three more children to
Jacob: Issacar, Zebulon and
Dinah.
But where was Rachel all this time? She was looking on and God finally opened her
womb (Gen. 30:22) and she bore Joseph and a while later, Benjamin;
who was born just as Rachel died.
This is, of course, a brief overview and we will be looking at
some of the tribes in more detail as our studies progress; for the moment
suffice it to say that The Twelve Tribes of Israel were established through
Jacob and that the Lord had plans for each tribe.
I- Eschatology (What is
holding Satan back)
Satan, at present is in the world and he basically wants
everyone to know that he does not exist; that way he can go about using the
different means he has at his disposal, such as: mediums, magicians, humanism, rock music,
astrology, etc., etc. and the unsuspecting soul who uses these methods has
certain pleasure and begins to like the power.
I remember one man in Marieville who used to balance pencils , screwdrivers and various other objects on the tip
of his fingers. Everyone that saw him do
these things was amazed at his "powers" and of course, the man liked these
powers too and he would use them to get what he wanted because everyone was
afraid of him There are hundreds of
other examples such as these; I'm sure you know of some also.
I bet you're wondering why God would let this go on. The answer is simple; the world belongs to
Satan. In Matthew 4:9, Satan tempted Our
Lord and said, “And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down
and worship me.” I ask you, how can
Satan GIVE something to somebody if does not already belong to him?
The world belongs to Satan and were it not for the Spirit of
God, this world would be rampant with evil. Thank the Lord that there are some
spots in this present world that Satan can't touch. For example, a believer's heart is
impenetrable by Satan. All he can do to
believers is be bothersome , but he can never, never,
win true believers to his cause because they belong to the Savior Jesus Christ
and no one can pluck them from His hand.
(John 10:28)
Notwithstanding, there will come a time when the Spirit of God
will be removed from this earth. The
Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 2:7 “For the secret of evil is even now at work:
but there is one who is keeping back the evil till he is taken out of the way.”
I ask you, where does the Spirit of God now reside? In the believer's heart. Next question: How will God do this? Very simple, at the rapture of the Church all
believers both dead and alive will be removed from this earth and as the Bible
says: “and so shall we ever be with the
Lord” 1 Thess 4:17b.
At this time, evil will take over the world and Anti-Christ will
come forth.