Truth

Truth

Rowan Mostert

Truth

Rowan Mostert

Bible Nuggets

Copyright © 2018 Rowan Mostert

Published by Rowan Mostert Publishing at Smashwords

First edition 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by the Author using Reach Publishers’ services,

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Edited by Tony van der Watt for Reach Publishers

Website: www.reachpublishers.co.za

E-mail: reach@webstorm.co.za

Cover designed by Rowan Mostert

The Purpose of This Book

As Christians we have been told that the Bible is all about Jesus and that the Old Testament is the New concealed, and that the New is the Old revealed, but I have to admit that at first I found it difficult to see the ‘concealed’ Jesus in the Old Testament. Obviously the New Testament is all about Jesus, but when we look at the Old Testament one has to admit that it is not always that easy to see Jesus depicted in the many stories that are told. For instance, imagine David acting like a madman, frothing at the mouth in front of Achish king of Gath, or Solomon the wisest of all men, marrying or making concubines out of a thousand unbelieving women, or Balaam helping Balak to bring a curse upon Israel. And then there is the Levite who cut his concubine into twelve pieces and eventually became instrumental in destroying almost the entire tribe of Benjamin? And what about the man who was speared to death in his tent for openly choosing to sleep with a Moabitess or the man of God who was killed by a lion for obeying the false words of a prophet from Bethel, etc? The purpose of this book is to show Jesus in the Old Testament, and when we discover how the truth is unlocked, we discover in the most remarkable way that everything in the Old Testament does indeed point toward Jesus.

Jesus himself "…beginning with Moses and all the Prophets explained to them (two of his disciples on the way to Emmaus) what was said in ALL THE SCRIPTURES CONCERNING HIMSELF" (Lk. 24:27 NIV) – remember, the New Testament had not yet been written. The cohesiveness of the Bible is in fact one of its greatest miracles. It would be one thing for the Bible to be unified in its theme if it had been written by only one man, as for example the teachings of Scientology that were authored by L. Ron Hubbard, or the Analects of Confucius that were written by Confucius. You would expect these writings to be uniform, but imagine I gave 40 different people a piece of paper, each torn from one of 40 different magazines, and then asked them to each tear their piece of paper into a different shape and give it back to me, what would the odds be of me being able to put all those randomly torn pieces of paper from 40 different magazines together, to form a perfect picture of Jesus with not a single piece of paper out of place and with no spaces left between? Impossible? Well that is the miracle of the Bible! Forty different authors from 40 different walks of life, e.g. prophets, poets, kings, fishermen, prisoners etc, writing from castles, prisons, caves, homes etc, over a period of 1500 years from three different continents, all perfectly slot together to paint a unified picture of Jesus. In other words, the story is always the same!

In this book answers are discovered to many questions that might previously not have been asked or even understood, e.g.:

• Why did God not simply destroy Satan before He created man?

• Or why did God create man if He knew man would be vulnerable to Satan?

• When did Satan fall? Was it before or after the creation of Adam?

• How long after Joseph died was Moses born?

• Why were Israel chosen and why are they still the chosen?

• Why did there have to be a virgin birth?

• Why exactly did Jesus have to die?

• How could Jesus be three days and three nights in the grave from Friday to Sunday?

• How could Jesus have been born in the time that Cyrenius was Governor of Syria (according to Luke), when history is clear that Cyrenius (or Quirinius) only became Governor of Syria ten years after king Herod (who had tried to kill baby Jesus) had already died in 4 BC?

• What is the exact biblically determined date of the Lord’s birthday?

• And what is the exact biblically determined date of his crucifixion?

• Why is water baptism so important for the Christian?

I like to think of this book as a ‘Jesus Feast’. In the Old Testament those who were under the law were commanded to … taste and see that the Lord is good … (Ps. 34:8), but the problem with tasting was that if you did not like what you had tasted (the way it was presented or explained), you would be unlikely to go back to tasting what you had not enjoyed (religion vs grace). The difference in the New Covenant is that we are now offered the opportunity to‘eat’ and enjoy the Lord’s body, and this book will help you to do just that (there is so much food for thought). This book will also help both Jews who have not yet realised that Yeshuah is their Messiah, to become Messianic believers, and it will reveal to Muslim’s that Issa (Jesus) is in fact the Mahdi that they were hoping should come … He is already here!

A Portion of My Testimony

In 1982 at the age of 26, almost exactly two years before I became a Christian, I was involved in a motorcycle accident, which required that my right leg be amputated through the knee. A year later my fiancé and I broke up. Miserable, I decided to sell everything I had in South Africa and travel to America to find fame, fortune and happiness. I was obviously hoping by my own efforts to solve the hurt and pain I felt. Needless to say, the chains that were binding me on the inside travelled with me. For two weeks I stayed with Marlin and Lisa Kennedy on Staten Island – a couple I had made friends with in South Africa. It was with them that I decided that the best way to tour their country with the cash that I had available would be by bicycle. I had a pale yellow T-shirt printed with the words ‘ONE LEG N.Y. to L.A’. Each day I would fold this T-shirt into a square and pin it to the back of the pack on my bicycle, like a number plate. The reason for this was that in America everyone drives on the right-hand side of the road, this is opposite to South Africa where we drive on the left, and being a right leg amputee, motorists needed to be warned of my handicap. The T-shirt also informed the public of what I was doing, and its message was instrumental in causing many people to stop and offer me all kinds of friendship.

I left N.Y. towards the end of a sweltering July. The 3700-mile (6000km) trip via Canada took me four and a half months to complete. I had everything I needed to survive on the bike. I took every opportunity I could to appear on television across the country to encourage other disabled people not to feel sorry for themselves. In fact, at the time that I began my trip, a young Canadian by name of Terry Scott had just raised $24,000 for cancer research by running three-quarters of the way across Canada with one leg. Knowledge of Terry’s selfless sacrifice might very well have contributed to the goodwill I received from most people across the States. I can however not claim to share the same credit that was due to Terry. My trip was motivated entirely by self, his was not. The truth is, I had been an Art Director in South Africa and I knew the value of promotion. Besides, it was also just cool to be on TV.

I planned my trip so that at the end of each day I would reach a town. I would look for the nicest suburb, then the poshest home, and after waiting for the residents to get home and settled in, I would knock on their door and introduce myself as Rowan Mostert, South African amputee cycling from New York to Los Angeles in an attempt to be entered in the Guinness Book of Records.

Sad to say, when I had finally completed my trip, the Guinness Book did not accept my story due to a technical misunderstanding. When I contacted them from Los Angeles they asked me when I had arrived, as in When did you reach town? I understood them to mean, When did you reach LA? as in the county of LA. It takes three days to reach the city of LA on a bicycle from the moment you pass the sign which welcomes you to the county of LA. Three days was unacceptable to Guinness as it was considered to be old news. I only clicked much later what they had meant. By then I couldn’t be bothered. I just wanted to get home.

Let’s get back to my story of knocking on the door of some suburban home. By way of introduction, I would always ask the folks if they had seen me on TV. Astonishingly, I never did meet anyone who had. I would ask permission to put my tent up on their lawn and assured them that I’d be packed and long gone without a trace that I’d been there by the time they went to work the next morning. Not one person ever turned me away. In fact they would usually say, Nonsense, we’ve got more than enough room in here. Come on in and tell us all about yourself. Many friendships were formed. I met so many wonderful American folk. Every person who would show me any form of hospitality was given the ‘privilege’ of signing my yellow T-shirt. I still have it today and unbeknownst to me at the time (I only found this out after my spiritual eyes were opened), many of the people I met were Christians, and they all wrote that they would be praying for me … and I believe they did. God had His hand on my life. My mother had been praying for my salvation for years and God was orchestrating an answer to her prayers.

The thing that kept pushing me on toward LA was that I had to get over the Rockies before the snow fell, unless of course I found my fame and fortune somewhere before the Rockies. But the further I travelled, the more that seemed unlikely. Just before Flagstaff I ran out of money. The day before I ran out of money I had met up with someone bicycling the same direction as me, and we teamed up. It was wonderful having someone to cycle with. I was always passing cyclists going in the opposite direction. This I later found out was because no sane cyclist bicycles from New York to LA because the wind always blows in the opposite direction. As we camped together, we shared stories and food. Incredibly we had both been born in Pretoria, South Africa. His parents had emigrated back to Holland, which was where he was from and where my ancestors were from. We were both keeping a diary of all our experiences. Mine was being recorded daily on cassette tape.

I was too proud to tell him that the food I was sharing with him was my last, and my map indicated that I still had 700 miles of desert ahead of me. That was almost scarier than the thought of not having any money left. In Africa we have some really serious deserts like the Namib and the Kalahari. That was what I was thinking when I read Navajo Desert. There was already snow on the mountains and to my horror I discovered it could take in excess of two weeks for money to be wired to me from South Africa. I couldn’t afford that much time; there was a very real danger that I could get snowed in.

That night after tape-recording the events of the day, as was my custom, I tried to tune my radio in for some music but all I could pick up was a Christian radio station. So I listened to the sermon. Unfortunately I do not remember the message or the preacher’s name, but by the end of that message it felt as though God Himself was in my tent. I decided to take the opportunity to make a deal with Him. I said, God, if you are real, I’m asking You to supply the means for me to complete my trip and return to South Africa with my bicycle. (I had grown sentimentally attached to the bike) …and if You will do this for me, I continued, I promise to read through Your Bible from beginning to end. And with that I drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

The next day we were cycling through Flagstaff. My friend was way ahead of me when suddenly a Texan opened his car door without looking and I rode slap bang into the door. My bicycle was wrecked. So was his car door. I was cut on the side of the mouth. With blood streaming down my beard I looked down at this man and all I could think to say was, You have just destroyed a world record. Tonight this story will be all over the news. (As if I was that important.) I didn’t know that in America you could sue at the drop of a hat. I dragged my broken bike over to a bicycle repair shop and within the hour that man’s insurance agent was standing in front of me with an open cheque book asking me how much I would want in compensation. The damage to my bike was 80 dollars. I figured 370 dollars would be ample compensation. If only I’d known LOL.

I was able to finish that trip in style with enough to afford a detour to the Grand Canyon. And the desert really wasn’t a desert, more like the Karoo in South Africa which would be termed a savannah or a prairie. It was quite fun. Once I reached LA I stayed on Venice Beach for two weeks waiting for family in South Africa to send me enough money for a flight back to New York. My return ticket to South Africa was booked from New York. The stories I could tell … but that’s for another book which I will entitle ‘Out on a limb’.

After flying back to my friends in a freezing, snow-filled New York, I bade farewell to America and returned to South Africa. It was now summer in South Africa, time to party. The problem was I could not get a job. I was staying with my mom at the time. One day she invited me to go with her to church and since I was bored out of my skull, with no car of my own, I decided to go. It was that day I asked Jesus to be my Lord. The following Sunday the pastor asked if there were any special requests. About seven of us were out of work. The pastor divided the entire congregation around each of us and they prayed for us with the laying on of hands. The following week a lady phoned me who had interviewed me some two months earlier, and asked me to come in for a second interview. This was unheard of in my profession. If you had not been contacted within a week of your interview, they were not interested. I got the job and I remained with that company for seven years. The following week, after accepting the Lord as my Saviour, I accepted an invitation to attend Bible classes.

Now in the years prior to becoming a Christian, I had been a drug peddler and a rather heavy user of the stuff. At one time I had even jumped out of an aeroplane at 12,000 feet tripping on acid (with a parachute of course). On another occasion, during a very bad trip (drug trip!), I had gone to bed with my mother’s Bible, kind of like it was a crucifix against Dracula or something. I had on a few occasions tried reading the Bible and I had always started at the beginning of the book (usually a good place to start) but I could never get past Genesis chapter five, where Adam begat Seth and Seth begat Enos and Enos begat … you get the idea. That’s where I always fell asleep. It was like a firewall to my brain. No one had ever told me that there were two parts to the Bible. I had also never been told that the words of the Bible are spiritual, because God who inspired men to write them, is a Spirit. Yes, they can be read and understood with the mind to an extent, but there is a deeper, more exciting level of understanding that comes when man’s spirit is born again. And I didn’t know that to be born again required only a declaration of one’s belief in Jesus. I had always believed that Jesus was the Son of God, that he had died on the cross for mankind’s sin, and that he had been raised from the dead, but… I had never personally invited Him to be my Lord and Saviour. Logically speaking, even the devil believes, but that’s not going to help him because he is never going to ask Jesus to be his Lord.

And so I was finally born again (Romans 10:9, 10). For me the change was almost instantaneous. Within a week my conscience so convicted me about smoking that I immediately gave it up (not that it was easy, but the power of that conviction in me was so strong that it gave me the willpower to see it through). I stopped drinking, swearing and even the diamond earring with the dangling marijuana leaf was permanently removed. Not that we need to change our bling when we become Christian, it’s just that at this vulnerable stage it’s usually advisable to disassociate ourselves from any negative influences that there might have been in our life, like any association with marijuana or those that use it. In addition, the Lord showed me that unless I was serious about finding a wife, I had no business dating girls. Girls in relationships become far more emotionally involved than guys usually do, and the hurt that break-ups invariably cause eventually harden their hearts, which can later cause problems in meaningful relationships. For two years I stopped going out with girls. I am not saying that this is prescriptive for all Christians; it’s just that that was what was right for me at the time. The very first book I was ever given as a Christian was Watchman Nee’s Spiritual Man in three volumes. What an introduction to this walk of faith!

One particular evening (quite a while later) while I was at Bible study, an elderly lady asked me if I would like to borrow a book written by Franklin Hall from Phoenix, Arizona, called The Fasting Prayer. The book fascinated me. Franklin Hall attributed many of the earlier church revivals to long periods of fasting. I do not believe that fasting is a ‘legal’ requirement for Christians, but I do feel that fasting can heighten spiritual receptivity, even some time after the fast. The book addressed the physiological effects that a 40-day fast on water alone would have on the body and how to come off such a fast. Some people in the book had even gone on to fast as long as 80 days on water alone! I suppose that depended on how much weight they had been carrying in the first place, because once the body has no more ‘fat’ or food reserve to feed off of its own, hunger returns. It’s so easy to miss that little sentence in Luke 4 verse 2, which tells us that after Jesus had fasted forty days in the wilderness he became hungry. Hunger actually disappears after a few days of fasting.

After having worked for a while, I had become eligible for two weeks of annual leave. I decided to take a vacation for what would amount to the final two weeks of my six-week fast, if I made it that far. And so I worked through the first four weeks of the fast.

To cut a long story short, during the final two weeks of my fast I was living in the back of my hatchback car, in the mountains, on a mattress, with a gas lamp and a very large bottle of water with a tap on the roof of my car … and during that time I read through the Amplified Bible from beginning to end. That’s how clear my mind was! What an incredible experience that was for me as a single young Christian beginning my journey of faith.

Quite a while after I had safely come off the fast, the Lord reminded me of my promise to Him, that I would read His Bible if He should make a way for me to complete my trip to L.A. and get back to South Africa with my bicycle! God knew that I would be up for a challenge, and by introducing me to Mr Hall’s book, He had manoeuvred me into a place of fulfilling my word to Him in a most remarkable way. Praise be to God! A long time after that, I began to wonder if one could plot an unbroken line from Adam to Jesus in the Bible, especially since it seemed that there was no way to know how long after Joseph had died, Moses was born. It took me seven years of computer research (on and off between work) to discover that one could plot that unbroken line (adamtojesuschart.com). How ironic that biblical genealogy, the very thing that had prevented me from reading the Bible, should become a subject of such fascination to me! Isn’t that just like God! Today the printed chart has successfully sold hundreds of copies through our bookshop at Rhema Bible Church in South Africa, of which my precious wife Claudia and I have been partners. We are also second-year graduates of the Rhema Bible Training Centre in South Africa. Our Pastor was Ray McCauley, and today we serve with his son Joshua McCauley, and Tara his wife, at Redemption Church.

What you are about to read in this book concerns another journey – the deeper journey of discovery that Claudia and I have made in understanding the Word of God, and especially of His grace toward us. This hermeneutic journey, i.e. study of interpretation, is majestic in beauty with all its twists and turns, and when we look at the Old and the New Testaments with spiritual understanding, we realise that it is not just the history of a people, it is all His-story. The threads of the tapestry are woven together to portray a most remarkable picture of Jesus. You will get to understand the history of the Old Testament.

I did not originally start out intending to write this book; I simply had a few questions which I posed to the Lord, one of which was that I wanted to know what the promises to Abraham were, to which we have become heirs. I brought my questions to the Father and He gave me this book. Today I feel what that little boy who gave two fishes and five loaves must have felt like when he probably received back twelve baskets full and which the apostles were probably made to carry as a lesson for their unbelief. We serve an incredibly patient God Who is still navigating the intricacy of our lives to bring us to the final destiny He has for each of us and for this world. Abram had to wait 25 years before God counted him ready or mature enough to receive his son Isaac. When the time is right, this earth will receive God’s Son in person for the last time. Until then, it remains all about Jesus. Søren Kierkegaard said, God made everything out of nothing, and before He can use anything it must be brought to nothing, but I am not entirely in agreement. In Christ we have already been equipped for the journey ahead, we have already been given all things that pertain to life and Godliness, we are His workmanship, we are a brand new creation!

After about 34 years of biblical discovery I owe a great deal of gratitude to, amongst others, the teachings of Watchman Nee, Dr Kenneth E. Hagin and recently to Joseph Prince in regard to the subject of grace. Their writings have been watershed moments in my Christian experience. What took me and many like me so long, need not take others that long. The birth pains have begun; the spaces between the contractions of this earth are becoming shorter and shorter. The Lord’s return is imminent. (Matt. 24:8). The purpose of this book is to help my brothers and sisters in the Lord get from A to Z in understanding more quickly than it took me. This after all is the purpose for building roads through deserts. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed… (Is. 40:3, 4. Lk. 3:5). Not everyone today has the finance or the time necessary to go to Bible College full-time, added to which is the fact that although Twitter, Facebook and other social media are a fantastic way of networking with the world, they are also guilty of stealing a lot of our free time which could be devoted to prayer and the worship of our Lord plus the reading of the Bible. This book seeks in a small part to redress that problem by hopefully creating an interest in and an excitement for the Word.

The 2008 film entitled Religulous as documented and directed by Larry Charles was an incredible indictment of the ignorance of so many Christians in the basic precepts and tenets of the Christian faith. With knowledge will come understanding and with understanding we can break the cycle of despair. My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge (Hos. 4:6). No need to go around the mountain at all! My prayer is that you will be inspired to study the Word of God for yourself so that … The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; …ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints (Eph. 1:18).

May I recommend, however, that before you attempt to read this book, you take a minute to say the following prayer with your heart and lips out loud. Even if at this stage you don’t yet believe in Jesus, I challenge you to do it and see what happens to your faith by the end of this book. Say: "Dear Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Forgive me for my sin. Wash me and cleanse me. Set me free. I thank You Jesus that You died for me. I believe… (yes, say the words, even if at this stage you are not yet convinced, say it by faith and then watch God make a believer out of you) …I believe that You are risen from the dead and that You are coming back again for me. Fill me with the Holy Spirit. Give me a passion for the lost, a hunger for the things of God and a holy boldness to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe I am now saved, born again and forgiven for all my sins." Jesus forgave all of mankind’s sins two thousand years ago when he died on the cross, and by your words you have just appropriated that forgiveness for yourself. Now as you read through this book, and search the scriptures with an honest heart, you will find Jesus to be everything that honest truth-seeking people have found Him to be, and so much more. Once you have become convinced that He is who He says He is, then when the difficulties of life come against you (as they will, for it is a part of living), remember to always run to God, not from Him, for He has the answer to every problem and has only the best in mind for you because He loves you and has a great plan for your life. Find a Bible teaching grace-filled Church and be blessed. All love, Rowan and Claudia.

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14).

Acknowledgments

This book was first a message from God to me. I now pass it on for all to share.

Much of the subject matter in this book was revealed to me directly by the Holy Spirit, but there have also been many anointed influences through the years. With this in mind I would like first to acknowledge Pastor Franz Esterhuizen (my spiritual father) and his brother Pastor Johan Esterhuizen for the excellent foundation they gave me in the Word. Pastor Ray McCauley has been my spiritual mentor for so many years; his international links have introduced us to some of the most anointed men in the Body of Christ. A big thank you must also go to my lecturers from Bible College (RBTC – Rhema Bible Training Centre), Dean Mark Hodgetts and Gordon Simmonds. A big thank you must go to Dr Corné Bekker for his material on the cross, and to Kevin Duffy, part-time lecturer from Rhema Tulsa on the subject of ‘Redemptive Realities’. I have enjoyed the teachings of many men like Pastor Benny Hinn, Perry Stone, Bob Yandian (who was the lecturer from Rhema Tulsa who introduced me to the initial principle of the Gap Theory), but my greatest thanks must go to Joseph Prince for his book Destined to Reign and Grace Revolution on the message of Grace and to Paul Ellis for explaining the grace message to believers like myself. I have also greatly enjoyed much of Francois du Toit’s paraphrased Bible, the Mirror Bible.

Huge thanks must go to my precious wife Claudia for her support in giving me the time to write and research the material for this book without pressure. She created an environment of tranquillity which afforded me the stillness to hear the voice of Holy Spirit, for which and to Whom I am eternally grateful.

An important note:

It has been impossible to table every nugget which has been recorded in this book. The reader is advised to make use of the blank pages at the back of this book to record anything that might be found to be of interest for later use.

Chapter 1

Origins

The error of unquestioned acceptance

Let’s start by uncovering some truth. The Bible says "…a man which built an house (Strongs 3614 by implication a family) … DIGGED DEEP, and LAID THE FOUNDATION on a ROCK" (Lk. 6:48); and although we know the Rock here is a picture of Jesus, we also know that Jesus spoke these words to those who were still under the law, who were trying to dig and lay a foundation for themselves which only Jesus himself could fulfil by his righteous life For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:11). The verse before the verse above, reads (Jesus speaking to those who were still under the law) … Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? But now that Jesus has laid the foundation, it still remains our responsibility to discover His truth (Pr. 25:2) and to then place or lay (Strongs 5087) our confidence in Him, in other words, believe.

So, let’s begin by disproving one of the most commonly accepted errors in the Bible, which is that the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt for a period of 400 or 430 years. The purpose for doing this is to show how easily error can creep into our theology. Had Adam and Eve questioned what the serpent said to them, they would have come to the obvious conclusion that they were already made in the image and likeness of God, no need to become that by eating some forbidden fruit.

In regard to Israel’s bondage in Egypt, Exodus 12:40 (See note A in the Appendix for commentary on this scripture. Also go to my video on U-tube ‘The Truth about the 430 years in Egypt’, in which I use my Chart [adamtojesuschart.com] to give a full visual exposition on the subject.) states that … the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. but the Septuagint/LXX, Masoretic and other versions of the Bible add the words … the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt AND IN THE LAND OF CANAAN, was four hundred and thirty years. They were strangers or sojourners living temporarily wherever they found themselves because they had no land to call their own. God never said they would be in bondage for 430 years; He said they would be strangers for 430 years. God made a promise to Abram when he was 75 years old (Ge. 12:4) which God again confirmed to him when he was 99 years old … I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art A STRANGER, all the land of Canaan… (Ge. 17:8). After the Exodus, when Israel entered the Promised Land, they had been strangers in lands that had not been their own (and this included Egypt), for a total of 430 years. So when God had told Abram Know for a surety that thy seed shall be a STRANGER in a LAND that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; (Ge. 15:13), we should realize that the word ‘land’ (Strongs 776) is better translated as the word earth or nations, and the word ‘afflict’ (Strongs 6031) simply means ‘to look down upon’. The 400 years in this scripture and in Acts 7:6 date from the time that Isaac was weaned at the age of five (thirty years after the promise), when he was confirmed as the seed at the time when Ishmael was cast out (Ge. 21:12 and Ga. 4:30).

The promise given in Abram’s 75th year up until the birth of his son Isaac was 25 years, to which we then add 60 years to the birth of Isaac’s son Jacob (Ge. 25:26). Then add to this the 147 years to the death of Jacob (Ge. 47:28) and an additional 54 years to the death of Joseph (Ge. 37:2; 41:46; 47:9, 28; 50:22), and by this we will have reached 286 years after the promise was first given to Abram. Now if we go back to Abram’s 75th year and calculate 430 years from that promise, we must arrive at Joshua and the allotment of property in the Promised Land, in other words, the moment Israel stopped being strangers in a foreign land. If we then subtract the 5 years of conquest that it took before that allotment took place (Josh. 5:6; 14:7, 10), plus the 40 years of their wandering in the wilderness (De. 29:5), and the 1 year that they spent at Sinai (Nu. 10:11), plus the 80 years of Moses’s life which was his age when he began to lead Israel from Egypt (De. 34:7, 29:5. Acts 7:23, 30), we find ourselves with a total of 126 years back from the allotment in the Promised Land to the birth of Moses, i.e. 430 – 126 = 304. This leaves us with a difference of only 18 years from the death of Joseph to the birth of Moses, i.e. 286 + 18 = 304. What this means is that from the death of Joseph to the deliverance of Israel from bondage in Egypt was a period of only 98 years, i.e. 18 from the death of Joseph to the birth of Moses to the age of 80 when Moses delivered Israel. In the 4000-year biblical timeline from Adam to our calendar, there is simply no room for a 430-year period of bondage in Egypt; every year is accounted for.

The actual period of bondage might have been only slightly more than 80 years because Aaron (Moses’s brother) was 3 years older than Moses (Ex. 7:7; De. 34:7; Nu. 33:39) and did not seem to have been affected by the imposed infanticide that almost cost baby Moses his life, indicating that the bondage had probably commenced quite recently. In a manner of speaking, Pharaoh’s attempt to kill off all the Israelite male babies in Egypt (Ex. 1:16) would be a picture of what king Herod would attempt to do to prevent the birth of the Messiah by slaughtering all the male babies aged two and less. Whether coincidence or not, it might be noted that the 18 dark or mysterious years that led from the prosperity of Joseph’s era to the tyranny of the Moses era, can be divided into three equal parts of six, i.e. 6 plus 6 plus 6 (666).

From 70 to more than 603 550 in only 171 years

"All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls were threescore and six; And the sons of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls: ALL THE SOULS OF THE HOUSE OF JACOB, which came into Egypt, WERE THREESCORE AND TEN" (Ge. 46:27). In other words, included in the 70 were Joseph, his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim, as well as his father Jacob. (Ge. 41:50; 46:5, 27; Ge. 48:5, 16; Ex. 1:7, 12; 12:37). The reference in Acts 7:14 by Stephen seems to be in error, but he was in fact quoting the Septuagint version of Genesis 46:20 where Machir, Gilead, Sutelaam, Taham and Eden, the sons of Manasseh and Ephraim are listed. Now although their sons would become part of the inheritance of Israel, strictly speaking they could not have been in Egypt when Jacob entered, because Manasseh and Ephraim, who at the very most could only have been about 10 years old, would obviously have been too young to have had any children at that time.

"And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are AN HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS" (Ge. 47:8, 9).

"And the Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, …on the first day of the second month, IN THE SECOND YEAR AFTER THEY WERE COME OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, saying, Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, …FROM TWENTY YEARS OLD AND UPWARD, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel: thou and Aaron shall number them by their armies. …These are those which were numbered of the children of Israel by the house of their fathers: all those that were numbered of the camps …were SIX HUNDRED AND THREE THOUSAND AND FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY. But the Levites were not numbered among the children of Israel" (Nu. 1:1-3; 2:32, 33). In other words, without counting the Levites or all the males under the age of twenty, Israel had grown to a staggering number of 603 550 men over the age of twenty by the second year of their exodus from Egypt. Their total number, which would have included the females and the male children under the age of twenty, could possibly have amounted to 2,5 million people or more.

Before we criticise such a large increase in Israel’s numbers in such a relatively short space of time, i.e. from the time that Jacob entered Egypt, we should take cognisance of what might have motivated them to increase to such an extent. First, God had instructed them to do so (Ge. 35:11). Secondly, every woman would have had the hope that she might be the one from whom the promised Messiah would be born who would be the Seed first promised to Eve (Ge. 3:15), and who now narrowed down would be one born from one of the descendants of Abraham (Ge. 15:5; 17-19). The thought of this would have motivated every woman to have as many children (especially male children) as possible. It was because of this hope, that in later years it would be seen as such a curse for a woman to be found barren. Then thirdly, we should remember that Israel held the hope that God’s promise to Abram would soon come to pass and that they would receive a rich land of their own. That promise alone would probably have been enough to motivate them to increase their numbers to the size of a nation as quickly as possible. Today the spiritual fulfilment of that premise is the Lord’s promise that we will only enter the fulfilment of our Promised Land, i.e. the promise of a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21:1), once we have grown the spiritual Body of Christ with every person that God intends should be a member within that Body, i.e. the many new births of those that should be saved. …this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come (Mt. 24:14).

After Jacob had entered Egypt at the age of 130, he had lived an additional 17 years and died at the age of 147 (Ge. 47:28). Joseph had then lived an additional 54 years until he died at the age of 110 (Ge. 50:26). Then had followed the 18 years until Moses was born, followed by the 80 years of Israel’s servitude. Then as we read in Numbers, in the second year after the exodus, which was a total of 171 years after Jacob had first entered Egypt with his family of 69 sons and grandsons (17 + 54 + 18 + 80 + 2 = 171), God ordered Moses and Aaron to take a census of all the men who were over the age of twenty in Israel, and the total came to 603 550. The question then that should be answered to silence the sceptics is, could Israel realistically have multiplied from those original 70 males to have reached such a staggeringly large number of men over the age of twenty in a matter of only 171 years?

There are three pivotal reference points in scripture that will enable us to plot the course of events that are about to unfold; first is the age of Jacob as he had entered Egypt (already mentioned); second, the date and time when Joseph was born; and the third is the age at which Joseph had become Prime Minister of Egypt.

At about the time when Joseph was 17 years old (Ge. 37:2), his brothers had sold him to some Ishmaelites who in turn had sold him into Egypt to be a slave (Ge. 37:28). Joseph remained in captivity for 13 years until he was miraculously delivered from prison and promoted to the position of Prime Minister of Egypt And Joseph was THIRTY YEARS OLD when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt (Ge. 41:46). Then had followed seven very prosperous agricultural years "… the earth brought forth by handfuls. And he (Joseph) gathered up all the food of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities … And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without number" (Ge. 41:47-49). After the prosperous years, there followed seven extremely ‘lean’ years, otherwise known as an extreme famine, and it affected the whole of the then known world. It was in the second year of that famine that Joseph was finally united with his brethren as they were forced by their hunger to come to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. (Ge. 45:6). By the time they had collected their father Jacob and all their family and possessions and returned to Egypt to settle there, Joseph could have been nearing the age of forty (30 + 7 + 2 + 1). It was at that time that Jacob had revealed to Pharaoh that he was 130 years old (Ge. 47:9). Incredibly this would mean that Jacob had been about 90 years old at the time that his son Joseph had been born (130 – 40 = 90).

We all know the story of how Jacob had manipulated his twin brother Esau to give up his birthright as the firstborn for a pot of stew, and then how he had later deceived his father Isaac in order to take that blessing that was now due to him from his brother (Ge. 27). The thing is, if Isaac had been more attentive to his wife Rebekah, she could have told him when the twins were about to be born, that God had said to her: Two nations are in thy womb … and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; AND THE ELDER SHALL SERVE THE YOUNGER (Ge. 25:23). There would have been no need for Jacob to have deceived his father for the birthright.

Words are powerful, and now that Jacob had the blessing from his father, he was forced to flee for his life to Haran, to the land of his mother’s brother outside the Promised Land, because Esau wanted to kill him. In Haran Jacob would be tricked (deceived) by his uncle Laban into working fourteen years for the hand of his two daughters in marriage, and at the end of those fourteen years of service, when … Rachel had born Joseph … Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away, that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country (Ge. 30:25). Now if Jacob had been 90 at the birth of his son Joseph, then obviously he must have been about 75 or 76, fourteen years earlier, when he had deceived his father Isaac to obtain Esau’s birthright. This was the exact same age that Abram (Jacob’s grandfather) had been when God had promised him an inheritance, an inheritance that would eventually include a son. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee … in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. … and Abram was seventy five years old when he departed out of Haran (Ge. 12:1-4).

The obvious difference between the story of Abram and that of Jacob, was that Abram had left Haran as an act of faith to receive his reward in a land that was promised to him by God (although at that time he did not know where that land would be), and although Abram made a few blunders along the way, he eventually learned to rest in God’s word so that God’s promise to him could come to pass "And he (Abram) believed in the Lord; and he (God) counted it to him for righteousness" (Ge. 15:6). Jacob, on the other hand, who had also left his family, had not done so as an act of faith; his flight from his family out of fear had caused him to return to his grandfather’s family in Haran, outside the Promised Land, where he would end up working (not resting), to earn his inheritance by the power of his own might. It was there amongst Abraham’s kinsmen (the ‘Semites’, a term derived from Noah’s son Shem), outside the Promised Land (far from God), that Joseph was born as a picture of Jesus who would be born under the law (which had separated mankind from the Kingdom of God), to eventually deliver ‘his family’ from their failed attempt to deliver themselves, from the famine that the world would eventually find itself in.

The life of Joseph is a beautiful picture of Jesus. In biblical numerics, the number 7 represents spiritual perfection, so, whatever Leah and Rachel were meant to have signified would obviously already have been fulfilled by the time Joseph as representing Jesus would have been born (this subject will be covered later in this book). Joseph was the only son to be born to Rachel (the second wife whom Jacob loved), after Leah and all the maidservants had stopped bearing children, whilst the family had been living in Haran (Strongs 2771 from 2787; parched; be angry, burn, dry, kindle). This meant that Joseph was the final son to be born outside the Promised Land (in other words, after Jesus was born – of whom Joseph was a type – everyone would have the opportunity to be born into the Kingdom of God).

Joseph’s only brother to be born from the same mother (Rachel), would be renamed Benjamin at his birth (Is. 62). Benjamin would be the twelfth and final son to be born to Jacob, and would obviously be the youngest of Jacob’s sons (later, Joseph’s two sons Ephraim and Manasseh, would replace Joseph and Levi, to make up the twelve tribes of Jacob, who would by then have been renamed Israel). Benjamin would also be the only son to be born inside the Promised Land. "And it came to pass, when she (Rachel) was in hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also. And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin" (Ge. 35:18, 19).

Now it is significant that after the fourteen years had been fulfilled (at the time that Joseph was born), Laban had convinced his nephew Jacob not to leave Haran, but to stay a while longer. When Jacob finally did leave Laban to return to the Promised Land, the record indicates that he had been with Laban a total of twenty years (Ge. 31:38, 41), twenty years of attempting to earn a life for his family by the power of his own might. In biblical numerics, the number 21 is a good number because it is three times the perfect number 7. Twenty on the other hand is obviously one short of completion, therefore 20 represents waiting and expectancy.

The six years that Joseph spent growing up in Haran (outside the Promised Land), figuratively represent the Lord growing up amongst sinful mankind (in biblical numerics, the number 6 represents both man and rebellion. It is interesting to notice that both man and the serpent were created on the sixth day).

In the Greek alphabet the number 6 is not represented by an alphabetic letter but is instead represented by a symbol called the stigma. In Revelation 13:18 the number of the Beast is written not as 666 but instead with the Greek symbols for 600, then 60, and then 6. In his book Numbers in Scripture, EW Bullinger observes that these three symbols correspond to the first and last letters of the Greek word for Christ = CHRISTOS, with the symbol of the serpent between these two outer letters (see Numbers in Scripture p. 49). Perhaps this arrangement can be seen to be a picture of the serpent being crushed by Christ, as God had foretold that He would do in Genesis 3:15, or it could be in reference to Christ the man taking upon himself the sin of man?

Some other interesting observations related to the number 6:

• The sixth of the Ten Commandments relates to murder (Ex. 20:13). … the devil … was a murderer from the beginning … (Jn. 8:44).

• The sixth clause in the Our Father/Lord’s Prayer, petitions that we not be led into sin but be delivered from evil (Mt. 6:13).

• The world turned dark beginning at the sixth hour Hebrew time (noon) when Christ was on the cross (Mt. 27:45; Mk 15:33; Lk. 23:44). In Roman time the sixth hour is 6-7AM when Jesus was being tried by the Roman Governor Pilate (Jn. 19:14).

• Jesus suffered on the cross for six hours, from 9AM (see Mk. 15:25), the hour of the first daily sacrifice in the Temple, to 3PM (see Mk. 15:33-34; Mt. 27:45; Lk. 23:44), the hour of the last sacrifice, and gave up his life at the beginning of the 7th hour (the number of completion and fulfilment). (Info on 6 adapted from an article by Agape Bible Study)

Jacob would have no more sons after Benjamin was born. His twelve sons would be the Patriarchs from whom the twelve tribes of Israel would descend. During his sojourn outside the Promised Land, the Bible records that Jacob had had only one daughter, Dinah, just before Joseph was born. Dinah was mentioned just before Joseph was born to send a message by the Hebrew meaning of her name (Strongs 1783 justice), in other words, Dinah represented the fact that God would be fair with those whom He had chosen and used, to attempt to fulfil the Old Covenant law, knowing that they would all fail.

Israel as a nation was chosen before Jesus was born, to prove that no man could live the requirements of the law to perfection in their own strength. The important thing to note is that although Benjamin would be the last son born to Jacob (who by then would have been renamed Israel), and although only one daughter was mentioned by name, this did not necessarily mean that Jacob would not have had any more daughters.

The blessing that had been promised to Abraham, had been for those who would be his Seed … IN THEE shall all families of the earth be blessed (Ge. 12:3) and … I will give unto thee, AND TO THY SEED AFTER THEE, the land wherein thou art A STRANGER, all the land of CANAAN … (Ge. 10:15) – in other words, the land that had become occupied by the descendants of Canaan who were living inside the Promised Land (Ge. 17:8). Canaan was one of the descendants of Ham (Ge. 10:6). Ham had been one of the three sons of Noah who had been cursed for his act of disrespect toward his father "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son (Ham) had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; A SERVANT OF SERVANTS SHALL HE BE UNTO HIS BRETHREN. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of SHEM; and Canaan shall be his servant" (Ge. 9:22-25). The land of Canaan would be taken away from the line of Ham and eventually given to the descendants of Shem. Abraham was descended from the line of Shem who had been blessed for covering his father’s nakedness. Abraham had understood from this ancient prophecy, that his seed would need to keep themselves separated from the line of Canaan upon whose descendants there had been placed this curse; there could be no mixture. It was for this reason that Abraham had sent his servant Eliezer (Ge. 15:2) out of Canaan, to his family in Haran. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that THOU SHALT NOT TAKE A WIFE UNTO MY SON OF THE DAUGHTERS OF THE CANAANITES, among whom I dwell: But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac (Ge. 24:2-4).

Now Jacob too had been forced by circumstance to find himself a wife (in fact two wives. The number 2 is the number of division) from Abraham’s relatives. The Bible tells us that Jacob’s elder brother "… Esau seeing that the DAUGHTERS OF CANAAN pleased not Isaac his father; Then went unto Ishmael (i.e. Abraham’s first son who was not blessed seed), and took unto the wives which he had (already taken from Canaan) Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son" (Ge. 28:9), as if that would make right what he had already done (Ge. 26:34, 35). Ishmael was the son … of the bondwoman… Hagar, who had been Sarah’s Egyptian handmaid (Ge. 16:1). Ishmael "… was born after the flesh; but he (Isaac, was born) of the freewoman (Sarah, and his birth…) was by promise" (Ga. 4:23). Of the two sons that would be born to Isaac, God chose Jacob, who would also be the younger. It was Jacob’s destiny (not Ishmael or Esau’s) that would be guided according to a specific plan that God had for them (Ge. 28:15).

The remarkable thing about Abraham’s family in Haran was that they were in fact idol worshippers (Ge. 31:32), and yet it was to them that the blessed promise had been given. God’s family was not going to be something that would be determined by an act of the flesh, i.e. self-effort as represented by Ishmael born from a slave woman outside the will of God, or from the descendants of Canaan who had chosen to illegally live in the Promised Land which God had foreordained to give to Shem. Another way to look at it would be to say that wherever Canaan had chosen to set up land, it would be taken from them according to God’s promise, and given to the descendants of Shem, the promised Seed of God.

Jesus would later tell his disciples For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother (Mt. 12:50). God was inviting even idolators, cheats, liars and thieves to become part of His Kingdom, to become part of the Bride of the Son whom He loves, not based on their righteous behaviour, but simply for the fact that they would be willing to be joined to His appointed ‘son’. The Canaanites,