JOSEPH #73 | JOSEPH IN EGYPT #55 | LAST WORDS OF JACOB #44

Pastor Christopher Choo

Lesson 3669

JOSEPH #73

JOSEPH IN EGYPT #55
LAST WORDS OF JACOB #44

13. BENJAMIN #7

BENJAMIN: CATALYST FOR RECONCILIATION #4.

In Jerusalem, I met a Messianic Jew named Benjamin who worked in a Christian bookshop. He was also a Bible scholar.

I will never forget what he shared about his namesake - that Benjamin never bowed to Esau.

That led me to search the scriptures recording the reunion of Jacob and Esau in Gen.33.

When Jacob encounters Esau upon his return to the Promised Land, he had his entire family to bow before Esau. Only one did not bow. Benjamin was still in Rachel’s womb. He could not bow! ( Read Gen 33:6-7 )

This is a significant prophetic gesture. The Benjamite spirit will not yield to Esau's even until today.

For the Temple of Solomon was in Benjamin’s territory. When it was built, the Temple abutted Judah’s territory there as Jerusalem became David's capital city - the City of David - which joined the Temple Mount at the Southern Gates of the Temple. Remember that David conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites who managed to resist Benjamin's fierce warriors. But the Temple in Judah's hands still remained in the territorial allotment of Benjamin. No Gentile was allowed into the Temple - in prophetic fulfilment that Benjamin will not bow to Esau.

Though the Temple Mount currently remains in the hands of the wake of Jordan under international law, we know that we are witnesses by faith to the future fulfilment of this prophecy. 

By type, Esther and Mordechai were formidable Benjamites to be reckoned with. They used godly wisdom and Esther's God-given beauty as weapons. Their enemy Haman was an Agagite, a descendant of Esau. We know the triumphant outcome for the people of God.

Today's lesson is timely - God preserved the Benjamite spirit to resist the Esau Spirit in the Endtimes. 

King Herod Antipas in Jesus' time was descended from the dynastic line of Herod the Great who was an Idumean - the race which took over Esau's territory around Petra. 

Herod Antipas faced Jesus ( from the line of Jacob through Judah) on the day of His crucifixion but Jesus said nothing when He was interrogated by this "fox" as Jesus called him - the Herod who killed John the Baptist.

For it is up to us to open our mouths and intercede as the Endtime Benjamite Generation in spiritual warfare and prayers of proclamations - what the prophet Obadiah had already prophesied against Edom.

Remember the short prophecy in the Book of Obadiah is specifically based on a prophetic vision concerning the fall of Edom, a mountain-dwelling nation whose founding father was Esau. 

Obadiah describes an encounter with God, who addresses Edom's 

arrogance and charges them for their "violence against 

your brother Jacob"  (Obadiah v.10).

“For the day of the LORD upon all the nations is near;

As you have done, it shall be done to you;

Your reprisal shall return upon your own head.

For as you drank on my holy mountain,

So shall all the nations drink continually;

Yes, they shall drink, and swallow,

And they shall be as though they had never been.” ( Obadiah vv.15-16 ).

Thus will our Lord be vindicated as Herod Antipas treated Him with contempt - the Son of David from the kingly line of Judah - by putting on him a royal robe to mock Him ( Luke 23:11-12 ) before sending Him to Pilate.

In this, the Benjamite Spirit will be in full support of Judah and will not bow nor succumb to the anti-Christ Spirit of Esau, the controlling spirit of our age.