God’s Summer First Fruits Harvest
This is an exciting time of year, and of the seasons, to learn what God says about His ultimate harvest, the harvest of His people.
There are many schools of thought and debate about Christians being taken away (caught up) before the seven years of tribulation. For some reason, there are many teachers telling followers of Jesus that He is going to make them suffer through the tribulation and then come get them. Then you have the ones who believe that God’s followers will be taken away before the tribulation begins.
Who is right?
Let’s break it down, and then do your own personal study in the Bible with Jesus and ask Him to show you His truth. Hopefully after reading this blog you will have a better understanding of the Bible and what God’s plan is for you.
Jesus’ special gift to you – the Holy Spirit
For Believers, Jesus blesses us with the special gift of His Holy Spirit. With that undeserving gift, we have access to experiencing comfort, peace, and hope all day everyday. He is literally a friend who cares for us at all times. Now, imagine you suddenly no longer have Him to comfort and protect you!
Has it ever occurred to you that the Holy Spirit will not be here during the tribulation? Once you realize that, it changes your whole prospective on Believers being here without Him. Here’s food for thought, consider this.
Do you think your Jesus would give you His Holy Spirit to comfort and protect you and then suddenly take Him away and leave you without Him to survive the tribulation the best you could? Does that sound like the loving Jesus that came and died for your sins? Truly ponder that question.
That revelation should cause you to pause and pray. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you His truth here. Study the scriptures yourself and ask the Holy Spirit to show you. He speaks clearly here when He explains that the anti-Christ can’t come until the “restrainer” (the Holy Spirit) is gone.
“Don’t you remember that when I was still with you, I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is restraining, so that he may be revealed in his own time. For already this separating from Torah is at work secretly, but it will be secretly only until he who is restraining is out of the way. Then the one who embodies separation from Torah will be revealed, the one whom the Lord Yeshua will slay with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the glory of his coming.”
2 Thessalonians 2:5-8
The Holy Spirit is the “restrainer! He is the one who is holding back the anti-Christ. Once He is out of the way, the anti-Christ will come. Ask the Holy Spirit if He expects you to survive the tribulation without Him. He will answer you. You don’t need me or anyone else to tell you what He says, ask Him yourself. He wants to have that conversation with you and to give you reassurance and alleviate your fears.
I’m a Christian, but I’m not ready to go
If that’s you saying, “I have a good life now, I’m not ready to go!”, please pause and pray. Think about what you are saying. Believers can see the signs of the times, if they are looking. If you choose not to look at the signs God is giving in the world, then that is something for you to discuss with Him. The signs are everywhere. If you are a Christian you are still going to Heaven, but you are missing out on all the conversations God wants to have with you right now about what He is trying to show you. It’s a time to be excited, not to be in fear that you can’t finish your story, as you see it playing out, on earth.
Sticking your head in the sand because you aren’t ready to leave your life is a sad place to be. Did it ever occur to you that God is coming soon to take you while in your “good life moment” because He is going to protect you from what is around the corner that you can’t see? Be thankful for the good life He has given you. Enjoy every moment following Him in it until He returns, but don’t ignore the signs He’s trying to show you. Think of it as leaving on a high-note, instead of when you are suffering in a valley. While your life might be in a good place, He is trying to show you that the world is on a course for self-destruction and He is going to save you from it. Be ready!
You do not want to live through the tribulation without the Holy Spirit! Imagine trying to live the life you have now, without God. Without God, you would have no life.
“Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.” John 12:25
If you love Jesus, but love your life more, and aren’t ready to go yet, He is clear about what will happen to your life on earth if it’s more important to you.
The Holy Spirit is leaving soon, do you want to go with Him or not? What He will leave behind will be hell on earth. It’s not something you want to hang around for. Your life as you know it is about to change regardless of how tight you try to hold on to it. Let it go, and look up! See the signs!
Scripture says that we will not know the day or time He returns, that He will come as a thief in the night. If you study those scriptures, He is saying that He will come like a thief to those who aren’t prepared; those who are not His. As in the times of Noah, He is showing His followers the signs and season to be preparing, watching, and waiting. He says in scripture that His wise ones are watching. Be wise!
Let’s dig into some scripture and find truth
In Amos 8, the prophet shares a very important vision.
“Then the Sovereign LORD showed me another vision. In it I saw a basket filled with ripe fruit. “What do you see, Amos?” he asked. I replied, “A basket full of ripe fruit.” Then the LORD said, “Like this fruit, Israel is ripe for punishment! I will not delay their punishment again.” Amos 8:1-2
In the Strong’s Concordance research shows that basket is also a vessel and is connected to the Gentiles, the Gentiles are also the fruit. Do your research to see for yourself. Jesus is gathering His Believers to take them away to safety and will then punish Israel.
Then in verse 11, God says the most HORRIBLE thing for any Believer to ever imagine!
“The time is coming,” says Adonai Elohim, “when I will send famine over the land, not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Adonai.” Amos 8:11
Try to imagine that!!! During the tribulation of punishment on non-believers, God will totally be gone. You will not be able to cry out to Him!
There will be a gathering of any surviving believers after the tribulation but they will have lived in an unimaginable hell being killed for their faith in Jesus having not taken the mark of the beast.
After the Great Harvest:
“I will surely consume them. There will be no more harvests of figs and grapes. Their fruit trees will all die. Whatever I gave them will soon be gone. I, the LORD, have spoken!’
‘My grief is beyond healing; my heart is broken.’
Listen to the weeping of my people; it can be heard all across the land. “Has the LORD abandoned Jerusalem?” the people ask. “Is her King no longer there?” “Oh, why have they provoked my anger with their carved idols and their worthless foreign gods?” says the LORD. “The harvest is finished, and the summer is gone,” the people cry, “yet we are not saved!” Jeremiah 8: 13, 18-20
“They have roused my jealousy by worshiping things that are not God; they have provoked my anger with their useless idols. Now I will rouse their jealousy through people who are not even a people; I will provoke their anger through the foolish Gentiles.” Deuteronomy 32:21 (Jesus + Church = Resurrection/Rapture) (Romans 10:19)
“Woe to me! for I have become like the leavings of summer fruit, like the gleanings when the vintage is finished—there isn’t a cluster worth eating, no early-ripened fig that appeals to me.” Micah 7:1
“When that day comes, his strong cities, which others abandoned when Isra’el advanced, will be like abandoned woods and forests; they will be laid waste. For you have forgotten the God who saved you, failed to remember the Rock of your strength; so you plant pagan-style gardens and set out vine-cuttings for a foreign god. Though you make them grow on the day you plant them, and in the morning your seedlings flower; the crop will vanish the day disease comes, a day of incurable pain.” Isaiah 17:9-11
Sharing Paul’s prayer
“Brothers, my heart’s deepest desire and my prayer to God for Isra’el is for their salvation; for I can testify to their zeal for God. But it is not based on correct understanding; for, since they are unaware of God’s way of making people righteous and instead seek to set up their own, they have not submitted themselves to God’s way of making people righteous. For the goal at which the Torah aims is the Messiah, who offers righteousness to everyone who trusts.” Romans 10:1-4
What do I do to be ready?
“What, then, does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”—that is, the word about trust which we proclaim, namely, that if you acknowledge publicly with your mouth that Yeshua [Jesus] is Lord and trust in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be delivered.
For with the heart one goes on trusting and thus continues toward righteousness, while with the mouth one keeps on making public acknowledgement and thus continues toward deliverance. For the passage quoted says that everyone who rests his trust on him will not be humiliated. That means that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—Adonai [God] is the same for everyone, rich toward everyone who calls on him, since everyone who calls on the name of Adonai will be delivered.
But how can they call on someone if they haven’t trusted in him? And how can they trust in someone if they haven’t heard about him? And how can they hear about someone if no one is proclaiming him? And how can people proclaim him unless God sends them?—as the Tanakh [First Testament of the Bible] puts it, “How beautiful are the feet of those announcing good news about good things!”
The problem is that they haven’t all paid attention to the Good News and obeyed it. For Yesha`yahu [Isaiah] says, “Adonai, who has trusted what he has heard from us?” So trust comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through a word proclaimed about the Messiah.
“But, I say, isn’t it rather that they didn’t hear?” No, they did hear—”Their voice has gone out throughout the whole world and their words to the ends of the earth.” “But, I say, isn’t it rather that Isra’el didn’t understand?” “I will provoke you to jealousy over a non-nation, over a nation void of understanding I will make you angry.”
Moreover, Yesha`yahu [Isaiah] boldly says, “I was found by those who were not looking for me, I became known to those who did not ask for me”; but to Isra’el he says, “All day long I held out my hands to a people who kept disobeying and contradicting.” Romans 10:8-21
He is speaking about the Gentiles here. A “non-nation, a nation void of understanding, those who were not looking for me.” God used the Gentiles to make Israel jealous. He chose Israel but they rejected Him, so He chose the Gentiles to make them jealous. Because of this, many Gentiles came to believe.
Caleb, the dog, represents!
“But God chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise; God chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the strong.” 1 Corinthian 1:27
I love that scripture, it’s full of God’s grace and mercy. Here are just a few people He chose that were not Israelites and they wholeheartedly followed God and were used by Him in a mighty way: Caleb, Rahab, and Ruth. All three were grafted into the tribe of Judah. Please do your own research to learn about these three; their stories are inspiring.
Remember the story in the Second Testament (Matthew 15) about the Gentile women begging for help from Jesus and she responded to His question by saying “even the dog’s eat the crumbs from the Master’s table?” Jesus wasn’t being mean to her, that’s where He is showing us that He loves the Gentiles and their faith in Him. There is no coincidence that the reference to “dog’s” is being used here by this Gentile woman.
Would it interest you to know that Caleb’s name in the Strong’s is also known as “dog?” Look it up. If Gentile’s are dog’s, then it’s good to be a dog! Don’t despair, it’s also related to “fruit.” So we are fruity dogs. Humor attempt. God is gathering His first “fruits”, the non-nation, the dogs, the ones who love Him wholeheartedly.
Remember, the wedding feast in the Gospels that no one would come too? Then the “master” (Jesus shadow type) invited all the “dog’s”: the poor, homeless, and widowed to the wedding and they came? That’s the Gentiles again.
Feeling more loved by Jesus right now? You should.
Caleb was one of the twelve spies that Moses sent to check out the Promised land. He and Joshua were the only ones that said, let’s go! The other ten spies said it was too scary. Because of Caleb’s faith and trust in God, he was blessed by God to be the first one to get land in the Promised land once they arrived years later. The Gentile went in first. He got to the Promised land first. Hint hint.
Hope for Israel
Do NOT think for a second that God has forgotten Israel. After they are punished for their sins, God will remember them. He will save a remnant as He has promised. He is not a God that changes His mind. (Malachi 3:6)
“In that day Israel’s glory will grow dim; its robust body will waste away. The whole land will look like a grainfield after the harvesters have gathered the grain. It will be desolate, like the fields in the valley of Rephaim after the harvest. Only a few of its people will be left, like stray olives left on a tree after the harvest. Only two or three remain in the highest branches, four or five scattered here and there on the limbs,” declares the LORD, the God of Israel.
Then at last the people will look to their Creator and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel. They will no longer look to their idols for help or worship what their own hands have made. They will never again bow down to their Asherah poles or worship at the pagan shrines they have built.” Isaiah 17:4-8
Hope for all NOW
“All you people of the world, everyone who lives on the earth—when I raise my battle flag on the mountain, look! When I blow the ram’s horn, listen!” Isaiah 18:3
“But those who die in the LORD will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy! For your life-giving light will fall like dew on your people in the place of the dead!” Isaiah 26:19
“Come, my people, enter your rooms, and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past.” Isaiah 26:20
In summary
There is nothing that this world has to offer that is worth staying behind for. If you feel like there is so much more than you wanted to do in your life, remember, God planned all along to have you live in the most exciting time ever imagined, His return for His people. There is nothing more exciting than that!
If you have hopes and dreams that have not been fulfilled, give them to God. He loves you and is going to protect you. He knows your heart; trust that His plan is better for you. Enjoy each day you have with Him here on this earth and keep spreading His love. But also, keep looking up. Watch for the signs. He’s talking to you, are you listening?
Then when His trumpet sounds He is going to bless you beyond your wildest dreams. Trust Him. Put all your hope in Him and He will give you peace…forever more.
Word to the wise: Don’t expect everyone to see what God shows you. Give grace to those who don’t see yet and keep being the light while you pray for them.
May God bless you and keep you.