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WORD 4 TODAY

THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2011

SEASON OF HARVEST

In Matthew chapter 13:37-43, Jesus tells the parable of the tares.

When the disciples asked Jesus to explain the parable He replied:

"The harvest is the end of the age..." [Matthew 13:39].

He used the exact same expression used in Matthew 28:20, sunteleia aionos.

So, if the end of the age begins with the Rapture, and Jesus told us the end of the age is THE HARVEST... we need to LOOK AT THE HARVEST, in order to determine how the end of the age will go down.

The Bible was written in an agricultural setting.

Israel's economy, to this very day, is largely agricultural.

So, it makes perfect sense that Jesus would use the agricultural cycles (harvest) to depict the end of the age.

And since God is such a perfectionist, and since He determined (planned) the END since the beginning, I've no doubt that the opposite is also true: that He also designed the agricultural cycles to coincide with the end of the age.

The agricultural cycle in Israel begins in the spring, in the month of Aviv and lasts 7 WEEKS (there's that 7-week period again!) until Pentecost.

Pentecost marks THE END of the grain harvest.

There's an additional harvest cycle in the fall, ending in Sukkot (Tabernacles) which marks the end of the fruit harvest.

However, Jesus didn't mention fruit with regards to the end of the age. He mentioned grains [Matthew 3:12; 13:30].

We see this again in Revelation 14:15,16 where the command is given to "Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe."

Later, in verses 17-20, we see another order regarding GRAPES (fruit). They are to be gathered into the "great winepress of the wrath of God".

The same thing is stated in Joel 3:13.

So, the tribulation saints, which manage to survive the reign of Antichrist, are raptured (there's a special rapture for them, Revelation 15:2) during the grain harvest (spring to summer).

The wicked (grapes) are gathered into the winepress of God's wrath during the fruit harvest which takes place in the fall (Armageddon), and even Jesus' garments will be stained with their blood at His Second Coming (Isaiah 63:1-6).

Where does that leave the Church?

Since the "end of the age" begins with our departure, hypothetically speaking, regardless of what year we leave, it would have to be during the 7-week season of harvest, which begins around Passover and ends in Pentecost.

Mark 4:26-29 (Jesus speaking) puts it this way:

"This is what the kingdom of God is like: A man scatters seed on the ground...the seed sprouts and grows... the soil produces grain-first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.

As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."

May His Church be found ripe.

May the Lord of the harvest FINALLY come.


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Ybic


Steven