Selection of the Lambs, April 15, part 1
Apr 16, 2019
I must briefly interrupt my study on the Judges in order to comment on yesterday’s news.
Beginning early in the morning while it was yet dark, reports say, a fire broke out in the spire of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France, burning all day and destroying the spire and roof of the cathedral. Apparently, the main structure of the cathedral was not overly damaged, and so they are now vowing to rebuild.
The spire had been undergoing a multi-million dollar renovation.
Some suspect arson, because many churches have been attacked recently around the world.
Until governments repent and renounce their right to lie to the public, we will probably not know for sure about the origins of these arsons.
April 15 Selection of the Lambs
April 15 was one of our watch dates this year, as it is the 10th day of the 1st month on the Hebrew calendar—the day that the lambs are selected for Passover, and also the day that Joshua led Israel into the Promised Land.
It was also the day after Palm Sunday. That Monday morning, according to Matthew’s account, Jesus cursed the fig tree.
On Palm Sunday, Jesus came into Jerusalem on the donkey (Matthew 21:8-11). He then went straight to the temple where He cast out the money changers (Matthew 21:12-13). That evening, or possibly the next day, the chief priests met to condemn Jesus to death. They selected Him as their Passover lamb without realizing it.
he next day (Matthew 21:17, 18, 19) He cursed the fig tree, declaring it to be forever fruitless, although it was to come back to life in the latter days long enough to bring forth more leaves (Matthew 24:32).
The fig tree has indeed remained fruitless, as Jesus prophesied. The tree must again immediately wither away from the roots up, as at the first occasion, in order for the people themselves (individuals) to be set free from the bondage of the state itself. As long as they have confidence that the Israeli state will bear fruit for the Kingdom, they will remain blind to the truth, and that blindness will keep them bound by the curse.
Esau Usurps Nimrod’s Kingdom
In yesterday’s study of the Judges, I showed how 1948 was 8 x 414 years from Israel’s first captivity to the king of Mesopotamia (i.e., Babylon) in Judges 3:8. This time period was patterned after this eight-year captivity. The pattern of Babylon’s fall occurred 2 x 414 years later in 537 B.C. The rest of that cycle, another 6 periods of 414 years, came to 1948.
That was the year that Babylon should have fallen, and it did, but not in an obvious manner. It fell according to the pattern set by Esau himself, who killed Nimrod and took his garment of skin—the symbol of the divine right to rule.
This story is told not in Scripture but in the book of Jasher, chapter 27.
4 And on a certain day Esau went in the field to hunt, and he found Nimrod walking in the wilderness with his two men… 7 And Nimrod and two of his men that were with him came to the place where they were, when Esau started suddenly from his lurking place, and drew his sword, and hastened and ran to Nimrod and cut off his head…. 10 And when Esau saw the mighty men of Nimrod coming at a distance, he fled, and thereby escaped; and Esau took the valuable garments of Nimrod, which Nimrod’s father had bequeathed to Nimrod, and with which Nimrod prevailed over the whole land, and he ran and concealed them in his house. 11 And Esau took those garments and ran into the city on account of Nimrod’s men, and he came unto his father’s house wearied and exhausted from fight, and he was ready to die through grief when he approached his brother Jacob and sat before him. 12 And he said unto his brother Jacob, behold I shall die this day, and wherefore then do I want the birthright?
We see, then, that Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for what he thought might be his last meal. He may also have been motivated by the fact that he now possessed the garment of skin that his father had given him. That garment, according to Jasher, had been stolen earlier from Noah, while Noah was drunk (Genesis 9:20, 21). Jasher says that Ham and Canaan stripped him of his garment, which was how Noah came to be naked.
That garment, of course, was the one given to Adam in Genesis 3:21. It was a replacement for the spiritual garments of immortality which Paul discusses in 2 Corinthians 5:1-4. The garment of skin, then, came to represent the divine right to rule, and when Nimrod put them on later, he was able to rule the earth in the original pattern of the rise of Babylon, Nimrod’s capital.
Thus, by killing Nimrod and stealing his garment, Esau was able to usurp Nimrod’s claim upon the earth. I believe that this set the pattern for what happened in 1948. The descendants of Esau usurped the power of Babylon and thereby took the birthright represented in ancient times by the garment of skin.
The Laws of Birthright Transfer
There were actually two relevant stories involved in this birthright transfer. The first is the sale of the birthright in the story above, which portrays how Esau came to receive the symbol of the birthright. The second is when Jacob later pretended to be Esau in order to get the blessing from Isaac. That was a case of identity theft, which caused Isaac to prophesy that Jacob would have to give the “dominion” back to Esau at some point in the future. Esau would have to receive justice in the divine court on account of Jacob’s unlawful way of obtaining the birthright.
So in 1948 the British (Brit, or beriyth, “Covenant” and ish, “man”), whose flag is called Union JACK (Jacob), gave the birthright back to Esau’s descendants. The British had been in control of Palestine since the end of World War 1 in 1917, so that they could fulfill the prophetic type as representatives of Jacob in the divine court. In giving the birthright back to Esau in 1948, the heirs of Esau were able to take also the birthright name, Israel.
Ironically, just as Jacob had stolen Esau’s identity to obtain the birthright many years ago, so also did the law of God allow Esau steal Jacob’s identity, calling itself Israel. In other words, the judgment fit the crime. It was an “eye for eye” (Exodus 21:24), for in both cases, it was made possible only by blindness. First Isaac was blind (Genesis 27:1), and in 1948 the Church was blind, thinking that the Jews were Israel and that the Israeli state was truly the Israel of prophecy that would soon “fill the whole world with fruit” (Isaiah 27:6).
But Jesus said that the fig tree of Judah would never again bring forth fruit, even though they would later bring forth leaves in 1948.
The legal mess, created by Jacob’s panic and lack of faith in Genesis 27, was resolved in 1948 when Jacob was commanded to give the birthright back to Esau. Esau had to be given time to prove himself unworthy of the birthright, for the law forbids a man from passing over his firstborn son without some lawful cause (Deuteronomy 21:16, 17). It is only when he persists as a “stubborn son” (Deuteronomy 21:18) or some other unlawful act that he can lawfully be stripped of the birthright, as we see later in the case of Reuben (1 Chronicles 5:1).
So we must view the two stories in Genesis together. On the one hand, Esau killed Nimrod again in 1948 and usurped his garment (power of the birthright). On the other hand, from the perspective of the divine court, Jacob was commanded to give the birthright back to Esau in 1948 in order to give Esau time to prove himself unworthy.
In the end, the birthright will go to the overcomers. Daniel calls them “the saints of the Most High,” who receive the dominion at the end of the final beast (Daniel 7:22 KJV). The New Testament defines this term more specifically in terms of those who qualify for the first resurrection (Revelation 20:4, 5, 6). These are the true Israelites, not merely in name or by genealogy but in actual calling.
These overcomers are pictured in Othniel, whose name means “the power of God,” but in the context of the other judges, it refers to the voice of God. His voice is the expression of His power to set people free from bondage. These are the overcomers, “the saints of the Most High.”