When will Jesus rapture His Church-Biblical Worldview

Welcome to episode 195, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 195. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, it is another Saturday, and I am on episode 6 of this week, and that means that I am going to take my biblical worldview and kind of put it up against things that are going on in this world. It's just kind of one of these little off-topic, off the mountain of God things that I'm just doing to kind of keep my sanity and to just show you how this Bible holds up against the worldview and the world. Because one of our enemies is the world, and it's the worldview, or it's the speed in which everything's going, all this technology. We're fighting Satan, we're fighting the world system, and we're fighting our flesh. So this is an attempt on Saturday to show you that this world system is going to hell in a handcart, for lack of a better way to describe it. I mean, it is going in the wrong direction. It is not going in the biblical direction. To a sense, God is pulling, I think, all of these countries and all of this stuff. He's pulling them. He says he's going to put a hook in their jaw and he's going to drag them through. So everything is happening as the Bible says it's going to happen, but most people don't see it and most people don't believe it. Today I want to talk to you about the rapture of the church in the context of the Jewish feasts. There were 7 Jewish feasts, and we're going to talk about all of those. But first, we need to go to Colossians 2:16. So let no one judge you in food or drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbath, which are shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. And I've just got to go into a little bit of a conversation about types and shadows. If you saw my shadow, it would be a somewhat representation of me, but depending on where the light's coming from and depending on how you see it, it may not represent me wonderfully well. It may be way too tall or way too fat or way too short, but a shadow does let you know that something's coming. Like if you see a shadow coming around a corner, you'll know that someone or some car is coming. But when you see the actual thing, then you don't need the shadow anymore. So that— I just kind of, with this context that I'm about to start talking, I want you to be able to see that the Old Testament and these feasts that God gave the children of Israel was a type of what was going to come in the future. These were things that were going to happen, and the Jewish people celebrated them, and they continue to celebrate these feasts. There's 7 of them. There's 4 in the spring and there's 3 in the fall. And I want to tell you about the 4 that are in the spring. They have all been fulfilled, in my humble opinion, in the opinion of many scholars, but they have all been fulfilled by Jesus. And let's just go over them real quick. And before we get in that, I want to give you a little context, and it's in Leviticus 23, and it starts in verse 1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, the feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are my feasts. And I want to key in on two words: feast. The word feast here means appointed festival, and so these feasts are appointed festivals. And convocation means a couple of different things, and we're going to key in on one of them. One of them is a public meeting, and the second meaning is a dress rehearsal. And I just believe that that's what— that is the meaning that God is speaking to Moses. And you can disagree, but if as we go into this teaching, I want you just to see how these— as a dress rehearsal and the types and shadows that the Old Testament is showing, God was using the Old Testament, he was using the prophets to say, hey, this is going to happen. Let me briefly go over those 7 feasts with you. 4 are in the spring and 3 are in the fall. The first feast is the Passover. The second feast is the Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The third feast is the Feast of First Fruits, and then the Feast of Pentecost. The fifth feast is the Feast of the Trumpets. The 6th feast is the Feast of Atonement, and the 7th feast is the Feast of Tabernacles. And I just want to briefly, I want to put those all out there. The 4 that are in the spring are Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, and Pentecost. And if you can see by the names, all of these have been fulfilled. And remember, we go back to the dress rehearsal. God gave these as prophetic feasts. The Jews, the Israelis, did these feasts because God told them to do the feasts. This was part of the law. They would all need to come together, but it was really a dress rehearsal of things to come. And the Jewish people didn't know that. I mean, they were, they were feasting to, you know, to give glory and honor to God, but he is proclaiming what is going to happen in the future. And in the future, Jesus was killed on the Feast of Passover And if you remember, God gave the Passover to Moses when they were coming out of the land of Egypt. They were to kill a male lamb that was perfect, without spot or blemish, and they were to put the blood on the doorpost so that the angel, the death angel, would go over their house. It would pass over the house of the Israelites. So this is the Passover, and that I want to show you in scripture where John the Baptist gave Jesus his death sentence. John 1:29, the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John spoke that over to Jesus and declared him the Lamb of God. He was going to be killed for sin, and it was going to happen on the Passover. We didn't know that yet, but John prophetically proclaimed Jesus as the Passover Lamb. And then the second feast is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and leaven represented sin. And this was for 7 days. They could not eat anything with leaven in it, and it was for 7 days. And I want to remind you that the number 7 represents perfection. It's a perfect number. It's a God— it's God's number. This went on for 7 days, And Jesus was buried on the Feast of Unleavened Bread. So he was put in the ground and he perfectly removed sin from the human race. This— when I say that sin is no longer the issue, it is because Jesus took the sin and buried it. Like the unleavened bread, you— the leaven is hid, sin is hid into the, into the bread or the dough,, and it makes it, you know, it makes it swell or whatever, makes the bread thick. But leaven represents sin in the Bible, and Jesus removed all sin. Now Jesus was resurrected on the third festival, and it was the Feast of Firstfruits. And this is where the priests would come out and wave like the first barley, they would wave as a firstfruits offering. To God, that the first fruits of the harvest. And Paul addresses this in 1 Corinthians 15: But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. And so Jesus is the first fruits. This is the first fruits offering. He was resurrected. That's what gives us confidence. And the Bible would be worthless if Jesus had not risen from the dead. He's risen from the dead. He'll never die again. So we can take comfort in knowing that even if we die or loved ones have died, that's why it says comfort one another with these things. At funerals, they'll say these verses, but it's in, it is in 1 Thessalonians 4, I believe, and 1 Corinthians 15. I want to move on. The fourth feast is the Feast of Pentecost, and Pentecost just means 50, and 50 is a very significant number for the Jews because every 50 years God told the Jewish people to let the land rest and all the slaves were to become free. This is Pentecost. This was the 50th year. In fact, I believe that the Jews celebrated this for 2 years, for the— in the 49th year and the 50th year, that they would— they would celebrate Jubilee, and this was signified by Pentecost. In all 4 of these spring feasts, have been fulfilled by Jesus, and they were all fulfilled when he died on the cross, when he was buried, when he was raised again, when the Holy Spirit fell on the believers at the, at the Pentecost. So all of these, the types and shadows, are now— we can look and actually see it. But there are 3 other feasts that have not happened yet, and it's the Feast of Trumpets, the Feast of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles. And I want to concentrate on the Feast of Trumpets because I believe that is the rapture of the church. And since this feast is on the Jewish calendar, September 6th through the 8th, I feel a sense of urgency to get this out there because I believe that Jesus will rapture his church sometime during the Feast of Trumpets. Now, I don't know if it's this year, I don't know if— and this is just speculation because we're not going to know the time or the place, but it says that we His children are not going to be caught off guard. So we can look and see what God has done in the past and what he said, that these were dress rehearsals. I believe the rapture of the church is going to take place sometime during the Feast of Trumpets, and that could be any time during the September 6th or 8th this year, or it can be any Feast of the Trumpets in any year following this year. Now I know you've probably, if you followed me, you know I've got a little bit of a distorted sense of humor and say, I don't know why Jesus didn't come back last Thursday. Well, I believe that Jesus is, there's a set time when Jesus will return. And I've said multiple times, and when I first started this podcast, I said that there are 3 truths. And one of those truths is Jesus is one day closer to returning today than he was yesterday. But I believe specifically that the trumpet is going to sound on the Feast of Trumpets and the dead in Christ shall rise, and then we remain will be caught up in the air with him. And I believe it kicks in to the, the Feast of Atonement, which is Christ's second return, and it's at the end of the 7-year tribulation. And then the Feast of Tabernacles. And I just want to show you the symbolism, and God is so cool. But it is the 7th feast in the 7th month, and it lasts for 7 days. 777 is— 7 is the number of perfection, and 777 in 3s shows that it is the perfect culmination of this whole biblical worldview. And I just wanted to get that out. I want you to be prepared. I don't want you to be caught off guard that the rapture of the church— we need to be looking, we need to be thinking about this. This is very serious business. You feel that the end of times is coming, your feeler may be a little broke. I'm not saying that it'll be this Festival of Trumpets, but I'm saying it could be. There's nothing standing— I don't think there's anything standing in the way other than God's compassion for his people. The first 4 feasts are in the spring, and then the summertime is where you plant and where you harvest, and then the last 3 is in the fall. There's been planting and harvesting of souls. That's the Great Commission. That's our work. Some will water, some will plant, but the, the harvest is the Lord's. And I want to finish up in Matthew 9:37. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. If you and I are not raptured during this Feast of Trumpets, I just want to encourage you that it is time. The harvest is truly plentiful, but the laborers are few. Father God, Jesus' own words said that we are to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into your harvest. God, I pray in Jesus' name that you would send us out and we could proclaim your goodness throughout all the world and to your people. Lord, starting in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and then the othermost parts of the earth. God, I pray that you would help this listener to get a hunger to go help the people in his world or her world to find you. God, I pray that whoever you're drawing to yourself, they will be found before the rapture. God, I thank you. We love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.

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