The Two Female Bears and Forty Two Children
D____ wrote:
Mr. VinsonThanks for the conference and all you said there. It was very enlightening. It was such a joy to meet you and discuss “The Christ” at dinner with you.
You were right when you said “hopefully you will be a changed person after leaving here”. I really do feel changed thanks to God through you. Wanted to tell you something I saw the other day. A guy I work with goes to one of the local churches here. I asked him a scripture in the bible, and he looked it up. So as we’re looking at it, I said “I wonder what the two bears symbolize.” He says what do you mean ‘symbolize’? I said in 2Ki 2:24 the two bears are female, and the young kids number 42. He said it just means bears and children. I realized at that minute a majority of people aren’t interested in the spiritual application or even the symbolism throughout the entire bible. For me the greatest thing to change me is that “we shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY word that proceeds out of the mouth of GOD”. Thanks for repeating this until I really HEARD it.I was wondering if you could help me to explain. If you don’t have time, I totally understand. Thank you before hand.
God bless,
D_____
Hi D_____,
It is good hearing from you. I have not thought of what the two female bears represent, and the forty- two mocking children, but it is sure good to see that you are thinking of what this means spiritually.
Throughout the Old Testament the lion and the bear are associated with ravenous beasts which devour God’s children, His ‘flock.’ Here is how the bear is portrayed when it is first mentioned in God’s Word:
1Sa 17:34 And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock:
Pro 28:15 As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear; so is a wicked ruler over the poor people.
Lam 3:10 He [ God] was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
Hos 13:8 I [ God] will meet them [ God’s rebellious people] as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them.
Pro 17:12 Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.
Both Elijah and Elisha were robbing Baal of his prophets. Elijah had just slain 400 of the prophets of Baal. Jezebel certainly felt “robbed of her whelps.”
So the lion and the bear both are types of Satan. But I hope that your wife will read After The Counsel Of His Own Will and notice that it was God Himself who caused Joseph’s brothers to want him dead and who sold him into slavery into Egypt. But God does not tell us that either we or Satan are responsible for our actions:
Gen 45:4 And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6 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.
Gen 45:7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.
“And he said… you sold me into Egypt… so now it was not you… but God.” ‘You’-‘not you?” Is Joseph contradicting himself? The natural man will say yes, he is. Joseph even repeats this apparent contradiction in the last chapter of Genesis.
Gen 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as [ it is] this day, to save much people alive.
Joseph tells us that the evil which Joseph’s brothers thought against him was “meant” by God “unto good.” And so it is with all evil. When it is all said and done, it will all produce good simply because “God meant it unto good… to save much people alive.”
In reality, when Joseph’s brothers first had the thought of doing harm to Joseph, this is what was really taking place:
Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.
And as Solomon explains just a few verses later, Joseph’s evil and wicked brothers were, in the final analysis, the work of God’s sovereign hand in all things.
Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
Like Joseph’s brothers, we simply will not relinquish the false doctrine of free moral agency and free will. The false doctrine of free will is nothing less than the beast sitting on the throne. We actually believe that we are what we are by our own choice. And as Joseph said “You indeed meant it for evil.” They actually had chosen to do evil to their own brother. Yes, indeed, they had a ‘will’ just like you and me. But there never is, never was and never will be anything about our will that is free from the influence of Him who “works all things after the counsel of His own will.” From his brothers’ perspective, sending Joseph as a slave into Egypt was their own idea. They “meant it for evil.” But what is the Truth which does not depend upon our fleshly perspective? Let every man be a liar and believe this:
Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God:
Getting back to the spiritual significance of the two bears, notice in Lam 3:10 and Hos 13:8 that God likens Himself to a roaring lion and a bear devouring His own people. Why would He liken Himself to a devouring lion and a bear? He would do so for the same reason he assumes responsibility for Joseph’s plight while in the prisons of Egypt. God sent an evil spirit to entice Joseph’s brothers to sell him into Egypt. Here is how God works evil to produce good:
1Sa 16:14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.
All evil lying spirits are in the final analysis “from the Lord,”and it is the Lord who sends them to be lying spirits in the mouths of all of the false prophets of today, just as He has always sent them to be lying spirits in the mouths of the false prophets of Israel:
2Ch 18:22 Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets , and the LORD hath spoken evil against thee.
It is the Lord Himself who causes us all, at our appointed time, to fall prey to the lies of the churches of Babylon. All of God’s people at some time in their lives fall victim to the lies of Babylon at the hand of God. That is what Paul meant when he told the Corinthians to “turn over to Satan for the destruction of the flash” the fornicator in their midst.
1Co 5:1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.
1Co 5:2 And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
We are not to tolerate fornication in our very midst. And yet spiritually, that is exactly what we are doing when we allow false doctrines into our spiritual houses.
When we follow scriptural instructions we put such people out of our spiritual midst, and we no longer discuss with such people the “things of the spirit.” Here instead is what we are to do.
1Co 5:5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
2Jn 1:10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your [ spiritual] house, neither bid him God speed:
Tit 3:10 A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject;
How hated are these words in today’s ecumenical atmosphere which teaches “unity in the essentials and tolerance [ of spiritual fornication] in the nonessentials.” “The essentials” are all the spiritual “fornication” which must not be tolerated by God’s elect.
“The destruction of the flesh” is what the prodigal son experienced. “The destruction of the flesh” is what the publican experienced:
Luk 15:21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
Luk 18:13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
When we realize that we really do “live by every word of God” we come to see ourselves as being “delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.” The “destruction of the flesh” is the best thing that will ever happen to any man. It always results in repentance as it did in the case of the Corinthian fornicator:
2Co 2:6 Sufficient to such a man is this punishment [ delivering him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh], which was inflicted of many.
2Co 2:7 So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.
2Co 2:8 Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him.
2Co 2:9 For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye be obedient in all things.
This is, in spirit, what David refers to when he told King Saul:
1Sa 17:37 David said moreover, The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee.
“Philistines” spiritually are those passions and false doctrines which are in the promised land, that is in us, enjoying the fruits of the land, but they are there without the benefits of spiritual circumcision. Consequently they are those things within us, lustful passions and false doctrines, which we have not yet cast out of ‘the land.’ When we cling to these things, we have not yet experienced “the destruction of the flesh.”
In my case, the doctrine with which I struggled the longest was the doctrine of God’s total sovereignty. It took me two whole years of fighting against the truth that…
Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God:
Only then was I able to see all those hundreds of scriptures which are listed in After The Counsel Of His Own Will.
Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
Getting back to the story of Elisha and the children and the two bears, the number ‘forty two’ is closely associated with the works of the flesh. It is a multiple of six which is the number God has given to man, who was created on the sixth day along with the lion and the bear. The fact that 42 is 7 sixes witnesses to the total carnality of these teenagers who were mocking the prophet of God.
The spiritual significance and the spiritual message behind forty- two children being devoured by two female bears is that Satan’s false doctrines also have their two witnesses in both Catholicism and Protestantism which both agree on all the essential doctrines of “historical orthodox Christianity;” doctrines like the immortality of the soul, the doctrine of free will as opposed to God’s sovereignty, the doctrine of eternal torment and the doctrine of the trinity.
All who believe in these “doctrines of demons” have been devoured by two female bears and a roaring lion.
I urge your wife to read that paper and try the spirits and see whether they be of God. God does not have to “force us to sin.” He made us naked [ sinful] and of the dust [ corruptible]. It is we who “indeed mean it for evil,” but the reality nevertheless is that it is really God who sends evil spirits to entice us to do evil.
Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.
Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
Pro 20:24 Man’s goings [ good or evil] are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way?
Jer 10:23 O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
Even when we fall victim to the lies of false prophets, as we all must in our appointed time, we must all eventually be delivered simply because God intends to save all men.”
Eze 14:9 And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.
1Jn 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for [ the sins of] the whole world.
Just like the “perdition” of the beast, just like the “destruction of the flesh,” and just like the “death… of the old man” the “destruction of that deceived prophet” within each of us, is the best thing we will ever experience. The Adversary wanted Christ to try and take a shortcut and bypass the death of the cross. But Christ knew that there were no shortcuts to His Father. These are His words. These words are True:
Mat 4:3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Even the negative things in the Word of God are in us all. We are every evil person we read of in God’s word. We are but beasts. But we are beasts who will one day be domesticated by God’s Spirit. Then we will be “four beasts” around the throne of God who will be saying:
Rev 5:8 And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
Rev 5:9 And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;
These beasts and elders around God’s throne are God’s elect, who put His word above life itself. I pray they typify you and me and your lovely wife. The only reason God would ever take your children from you is if your children are more important to you than your service to God. Our children are God’s gift to us. As grateful parents we will dedicate our children to God and His service. We will love them as God loves us and never fail to take the time to stop what we are doing to listen to our children as God listens to us. So too, we will never fail to stop what we are doing and to take the time to chasten and to scourge our children when discipline is needed.
Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Heb 12:7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
Let me be quick to add that I do not believe in beating my children. I have raised five children and have never bruised one of them ever. But they have all have some sore bottoms, whenever it was needed. They will all agree that it was definitely needed, and they are all grateful for the rearing they have received.
I hope this has answered your questions and I hope it has served to give you some peace of mind about your children.
It was an honor getting to meet you both in Dallas. I do hope to be able to see you again if the Lord permits.
Mike
Other related posts
- The Two Female Bears and Forty Two Children (April 13, 2008)