Applying mine numbers

John 21:11 says, “Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, and hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken.”

Jordan says, “There are all kind of different meanings placed on the 153. One writer said that that’s the number of different kinds of fish that were in the Sea of Galilee. Turns out he was wrong, so scratch that one.

“Someone says, ‘Well, 100 is the Gentile number, 50 would be Israel and 3 would be the godhead.’ The problem in the Bible is that 100 is not the Gentile number; 10 is the Gentile number. Fifty is not Israel’s number; 12 is Israel’s number and three is the number of the godhead. So you’ve got one out of three right. That won’t work either.

“Probably the most common thing you’ll hear is that it’s the number of Gentile nations on earth that go into the kingdom. That’s probably the thing that most Bible teachers generally teach.

“I heard a guy on the radio not long ago say, ‘Well, what that verse is telling you is that no matter what kind of people you’re after, the gospel net will bring them all in.’ He was saying, ‘You just go out and get any people you want,’ and that’s true isn’t it, but what’s that got to do with the 153?! Not much.

“I discovered something about this number recently that I thought was fascinating. If you take the numbers 1-17 and you add them together, you know what you get? 153. So 153 is the sum of 1-17 added (one-by-one) together. Bullinger says it’s the seventh prime number, which it is.

“153, when you multiply it out, is 9 times 17. If it’s the seventh prime number, you’ve got the number 9, 17 and 7 associated with it. 17 is 8 plus 9. See that? So you’ve got all these numbers bound up in this number right here and that number right there is the key to them.

“The number 17 turns out to be a fascinating number in the Scripture. There’s Rev. 13:17, talking about the Antichrist and the other beast, the false prophet.

“So if Israel’s going to have wisdom in the stand against the Antichrist, one of the things they have to do is count the number and the number is 666.

“I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting to count the 666’s in the Bible?’ You ever found the six hundred and sixty-sixth verse? The 666^th chapter in the Bible is Ecclesiastes 7:25.

“By the way, the Book of Ecclesiastes is a book written to prepare the Little Flock of Israel in the Last Days to be able to identify the philosophy that carries the lie program of the Adversary, that Son of Perdition you’re reading about over in Revelation.

“Proverbs gives them the wisdom they need to serve the Lord, and Ecclesiastes gives them the information they need to stay away from the thinking of the satanic policy of evil personified in the Antichrist.

“Verse 25: ‘I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness.’

“What’d Revelation tell you to do if you wanted to seek wisdom? Count the number. So you come down to verse 27: ‘Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account.’

“Somebody’s counting: ‘One, two, three,’ and when he does, he’s seeking out wisdom. So it’s just point of interest to me that in the Scripture, counting numbers and the use of numbers is something that is associated with getting some wisdom.

“Now I realize this is sort of like climbing up a tree, going out on a limb, and getting way out on the limb and handing somebody at the trunk of the tree a saw and saying, ‘Bet you can’t saw me off!’ They don’t have to; you’re out there so far that nobody else wants to go out there with you!

“But what happens is the way you get up the tree is just keep believing the verses, and the way you get out on the limb is you just keep believing the verses and pretty soon you look like you’re over here on a limb that’s fixing to crack out from under you, because the dude on the ground was too scared to climb up to start with. That’s sort of the way it is with these numbers kind of things.

“The No. 17 is associated with change, with transition from the old to the new in the Bible. The first 17 in the Bible is Genesis 1:17. That’s the 17^th time in the text that the term God appears. It’s in the same verse.

“Now if you come over to chapter 6:13, He’s going to bring an end to humanity in the earth and then He’s going to replace it with Noah and his family. There’s going to be an end to the old and a beginning of the new.

“That expression ‘God said’ in verse 13, that’s the 17^th time that expression occurs in your Bible. Come down to chapter 7 and notice when the change takes place. 7:9. When it says ‘as God commanded Noah’ that’s the seventeenth time that the name Noah appears in the text, and it appears in connection with the ending of the old world and the salvation of life to go into the new world.

“Matthew 7:28. That’s the 17^th time the name Jesus appears in the book of Matthew. Now, what did He do? He ended those sayings. When Noah’s name occurs the 17^th time, it’s because God had commanded him. Both are connected with the Scripture.

“If you go to John 2 and you see Christ’s first miracle there, where He turns the water to the wine, John 2 happens to be the 70^th chapter in the New Testament. So you begin to get these connections that go on.

“Gen. 7:11. The world ended on the 17^th day of the 7^th month; that’s when the rain started. Gen 8:3. Seventeen is associated with changing from the old to the new, and over and over, when you find that term seventeen, that’s what it gets associated with—the transition from the old to the new.

“Now, you’ll notice there’s interesting things in the text here if you go down to verse 8. That symbolism that told him the new earth is there. One was a dove. What is a dove a picture of in the Bible? The Holy Spirit.

“When Jesus is baptized, the Father speaks from heaven and the Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove. Well, what’s the olive tree a symbol of in the Bible? The nation Israel. Hosea 14, Romans 11.

“It’s the spiritual life that God the Holy Spirit’s going to give to the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the nation Israel. So what we’re looking at here is how new life is going to be established in the new world. It’s going to be the Holy Spirit working through ultimately the nation Israel. And it’s connecting all of it.

“One of the ways you can help identify the thrust behind the number is the Book of Genesis has 50 chapters. Most of the chapters will kind of clue you into what that number is about and will give you some help and understanding.

“You understand, some of the numbers in Scripture are very clear. Like 13 is the number of rebellion because that’s what Genesis 14 connects it with immediately. Three and seven are divine numbers of perfection and completion. Twelve is Israel’s number. Those numbers are real easy.

“Nine is the number of fruit bearing. Eight is the number of a new beginning. Seventeen is the number of the old passed away, changed to the new. So what do you wind up with when you put those numbers together in a sentence? You wind up with a perfect transition of Israel into fruitfulness. You’ve got this perfect new beginning of fruitfulness in the kingdom that comes and you say, ‘Wow! How ’bout that?!’

(To be continued tomorrow…)