As far as the east is from the west

The first 11 chapters of Genesis cover roughly 2,000 years of history. By comparison, Genesis 12 to Malachi 4 span another 2,000 years.

Skeptics will ask, “Why so much information in Genesis 1-11 about that time in history and so much less about the years that follow?” The answer is early Genesis provides the principle operating “ingredients” for everything.

One of the principles in the operation of the nations and of man, for example, is there are some directions in which history is destined to move.

“The direction God designed to be His direction is east to west,” explains Jordan. “That’s why the course of history has functioned that way, and as you go through the Word of God you’ll see it go that way.

“From Genesis 3, it’s clear the original birth of civilization began in the Middle East. If you take the word Eden in the Bible and look up the references to where it’s described, you’ll find one leg of it is over in Egypt, one leg is over where the Tigris and Euphrates are, where modern-day Kuwait is, and another leg is up north. If you take a line and connect the dots, you’ll have a triangle that will match the Fertile Crescent.

“Genesis 4:16 says, ‘And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.’

“Did Cain go toward God or away from God? That’s going away. When God told Israel to set up the tabernacle in the wilderness, He gave them very clear instructions: ‘When you come in, you’re going to go east to west.’

“That’s a pattern in Scripture. When Joshua was going to take Israel into the Promised Land, what did they do? They went over on the east side of the Jordan River, going into it from east to west.

“When Jesus Christ comes back to land on the Mount of Olives, and goes into Jerusalem, what does He do? He comes into the east. He goes into the eastern gate, which means He was going east to west.

“Whenever you go against this pattern in Scripture, you’re going in the wrong direction. In Genesis 12, God calls Abraham out of Ur to go west into the land of Canaan. But Abraham got all upset and went south. Was that a good idea?

“It’s fascinating to see how the course of history is designed to operate.  Look at Genesis 12:4-6. God said, ‘This is your land Abraham!’ Verse 10 reads, ‘And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.’

“Abraham went down into Egypt. You know what direction that is? Wrong way! You say, ‘But if he had gone west, he’d have gotten wet in the Mediterranean Sea!’ That’s right; he ought to have stayed put! He was in the land God put him in! You say, ‘But the Canaanites were there!’ Yeah, they didn’t belong there!

"They’d had warning that God was going to give that land to Abraham so they went up there and took it over. They weren’t where they were supposed to be and that’s why later on God tells Israel, ‘Wipe them all out because that isn’t their land.’  That was God’s land deeded to the land of Israel.

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“When Israel was carried off in the east into Babylonian captivity, that was a bad thing. But when God began to move into the Gentile nations, He began to move west with them.

“When He went to the Media-Persian Empire, He went west. The Greek empire was west. Then comes Rome and into the Western world; the Western hemisphere. The extension of America west into Asia.

“So the idea of the kings of the east--what you really have going on there is you have history going back to where it originated in.

“There are two great nations in Asia: China and India. There’s some things about the Chino-Indian relationships that sometime you don’t hear a lot about.

“We’re seeing culture move back to where civilization began. Ultimately it’s going back to the Middle East. In Daniel 8, for example, you get some detailed information about the kingdom of the Antichrist in the last days . . . ”