Listen to me carefully, because of the controversy about the rapture doctrine, I decided to take a teaching I had, which is called the rapture and the law first fruits, and show you two weeks of excerpts from this teaching. I'm telling you that it's time to get into the Word, not opinion. It's time to show you in history and the Word and the Greek and Hebrew word studies that this rapture is a true doctrine.

So my hair was black back then, but watch the content of this particular teaching. I want to welcome you to a very special teaching today. I don't know when I have been more excited about sharing fresh insight and information with viewers as I am on this subject. The rapture and the law of first fruits. What we're going to show you today is that the law of first fruits of harvest is a picture of the church being raptured to heaven before the beginning of the seven-year tribulation period. Now we've got a lot of material to cover. Now over here on my left, which will be your right on the screen, I have set up an image of the high priest. This is a mannequin with the high priest outfit on and we have some wheat and some barley. We have some of the early instruments that they would have used to harvest the wheat and the barley replicas that have been made. And we're going to talk about several things. We're going to talk about the law of harvest because the seven Feast of Israel centered around the harvest season, we're going to talk about the in-gathering, a term that you're going to be hearing, which is mentioned in the Old Testament, and how the in-gathering is a perfect picture of the gathering together of the saints in heaven, and we're going to talk about the law of first fruits and how first fruits is the key to understanding that there must be a gathering together of the saints of God at the temple in heaven and presented to Jesus Christ as his first fruits. Now let's look at two scriptures because if we're going to talk about this word rapture that we, it's a theological English word that

we use to describe an event mentioned by the Apostle Paul, then we have to read the scriptures. Let's look at two scriptures. First, that's the Lonean's chapter 4, 1617. Paul said, for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with the shout, with the voice of the Archangel with the Trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we what you're alive and remain, shall be," and notice the phrase,

caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the ear.

And so shall we... And the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be." Now notice the phrase, caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the

ear.

And so shall we ever be with the Lord.

The second reference is Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 10, that in the dispensation of the

fullness of times he might gather together in what all things in Christ, both which are

in heaven and which are in on earth even in Him.

Now notice it talks about something being gathered together to the Lord. That's the phrase that we're going to key up on in a few moments to help you understand where we get the concept or where we get the idea about a rapture. Now before we get into that subject, let's do a little bit of a background study here. Because among the Jewish people, especially those who believe the Bible, You know, our Bible is divided up into two components. It's the Old Testament and it's the New Testament. Now, the Old Testament revealed that there would come a Messiah. That this Messiah would be a King Messiah. He would come to rule on earth as King. Now, there are some prophecies in the Bible that indicate that the Messiah would suffer and then he would rule. This idea in prophecy became known as the two Messiahs. One is called Messiah, bin Yosef, and the other is called Messiah, bin David, which means Messiah, son of Joseph, Messiah, son of David. The Messiah, son of Joseph is supposed to come to earth and suffer and die. However, the Messiah, son of David is the one that David saw, which was going to rule on earth as a king. Now among the rabbinical scholars today in the Jewish religion, many of them believe that this is two different people appearing at two different times. However, if we understand the Bible prophecies and how they will fulfill through Christ, we understand that Jesus is one person who fulfills two different roles at two different time periods. For example, the first time that Jesus came, he came as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. He came as a Lamb to suffer at Passover and die. However, in the book of Revelation, when you read about Jesus, it calls him the lion of the tribe of Judah.

And as the lion of the tribe of Judah, he will rule on earth for a thousand years, Revelation chapter 20, and he will rule as king of kings and Lord of lords and rule the nations with the rod of iron. So it's not two different men, it's one man fulfilling two different roles. Now, speaking of his role, Jesus on earth was a prophet. in heaven right now he is the priest, but one day he will be crowned King of Kings and Lord of

Lords. Now, speaking of his role, Jesus on earth was a prophet. In heaven right now, he is the priest, but one day he will be crowned King of kings and Lord of lords. And so what I want to show you is this, that there is a concept both in the old and New Testament of a king Messiah who will produce a kingdom. Now, when you go into the Old Testament prophecies and you begin to read, you will discover numerous places where it talks about this. For example, in the book of Jude 14 and 15, the Bible says that, Enoch prophesied that the Lord would come with 10,000 of his saints to execute judgment upon the earth. Zachariah 14, if you go all the way through verses 4 through 8 and read it in its entirety, the Bible indicates that his feet shall stand that day upon the Mount of Olives which is eastward in

Jerusalem. The mountain will cleave in two parts, one part to the east and one

part to the west. Of course this is a prophecy about when Jesus comes back to earth again to rule there in the city of Jerusalem. Zachary 14, if you want to take the time later on to read verses 9 through 17, it will tell you that the King will rule from Jerusalem and that King of course is Christ.

We know from the book of Joel, Joel, Joel, Joel the nations. We know from Zachariah chapter 14 that when the king comes back that we will celebrate the feast of tabernacles with him. The nations will be joined together and will come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast with the Lord. So these are scriptures that indicate a king is coming back and that he's going to rule on earth. We also find in the book of Daniel that Daniel mentions in Daniel 244, 714, 718, there was coming a kingdom which would be the kingdom of God. And he says, the kingdom shall be given to the saints of the Most High God. Now Daniel is one of the first prophets of the Old Testament to actually talk about and mention a kingdom which was coming. Now that's under the Old Testament. We come into the New Testament. John the Baptist comes along and says, Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. John the Baptist of course is beheaded. Jesus then picks up the mantle and comes as the lamb that took away the sins of the world Jesus comes in what is Jesus' preach, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So John the Baptist and Jesus both preached about this kingdom which was going to come. Now when Jesus was about to ascend back to heaven in Acts chapter 1, his disciples came to him and asked him, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? Jesus said to them, it's not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has put in his own power. So the disciples were concerned about this restoration of the kingdom. And so when we go into the Old Testament, we discover that a king Messiah is coming, a king Messiah will rule from Jerusalem. A king Messiah will set up his kingdom in Jerusalem. According to the book of Ezekiel, this king Messiah will rebuild a huge temple in Jerusalem. And in Revelation chapter 19, there will be, I'm sorry, chapter 20, six times it mentions a thousand years. This king will rule in the day of the Lord. One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, a thousand years as one day. And this king Messiah will rule from the city of Jerusalem. Now that's a little background study about how when you read the Old and New Testament, you see a Messiah, the Hebrew word is Mashiach. It's the anointed one who will come back to rule and reign. Now we believe, and I believe the Bible indicates that Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Son of God, is that King Messiah. He came the first time as a lamb. coming the coming the second time as the line of the tribe of Judy. He came the first time to suffer. He's coming the second time to rule and reign. Now, that leads us to something. Does the Bible teach that there is going to be an appearing of this Messiah on earth? Yes, and we all know that. Even people who don't believe in what we call the second coming of the rapture understand,

that Jesus Christ, and let me rephrase it, the people who don't believe in the rapture concept, even they believe, people, for example, in dominion theology, what they call kingdom now, they believe the Lord is coming back one day, they basically believe that we're just gonna perfect the earth and Jesus is gonna come out of heaven, just plop down here somewhere on earth after we get things straightened up.

Of course, that's a concept that was taught later on in the amongst some of the early church fathers, but was never taught in the New Testament. The New Testament teachers, 318 places in the return of the Lord. Now the question comes up about if we have the Old Testament revelation given to the Jewish people about the Messiah. We have a New Testament revelation showing that Jesus was the Messiah. We could say it this way. The Old Testament is the Messiah being concealed. The New Testament is the Messiah being revealed. And I like that. Now if you look at this very carefully, this brings us to something interesting that is this. When God spoke to Abraham, God said to Abraham, your seed will be as the sand and as the stars. Now sand is earthly, stars are heavenly. And I've often pointed this out to people that the natural seed of Abraham, which are the Jewish people, have earthly promises, but the church has heavenly promises. And this is one reason I think God compared the seed of Abraham to two things, sand and stars. One would be a natural seed, one would be a spiritual seed. Believers today who've accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, they are the spiritual seed of Abraham, not the natural seed, but the spiritual seed of Abraham which has been grafted into that covenant. Now having said that, I want to share with you a couple of things that's very, very, very important as we get into the study. If the church is given heavenly promises, and we are as the seat of Abraham, the wonderful stars of heaven, where are those heavenly promises indicated in the New Testament? Well, let me say this to you. One of those heavenly promises is the coming of the Lord for the believer and the resurrection of the dead in Christ, summed up in an event we call the catching away or the English Theological Word is rapture. Now for a few moments I'm going to have to just share a little bit of background about this because one of the things that is being fought greatly by some television ministers, some on radio, some who write books is that this rapture teaching is some kind of a modern fabrication that began in the 1830s at a prayer meeting. Well, other men researched it and found out that it actually was first written in a book in the 1700s, so it predates 1830. And then other men researched and found some scrolls from the Orthodox Church by Ephraim the Syrian, where he taught that there would be a pre-tribulation rapture of the church that would happen before the Seventh-Year Tribulation period.

And that was taught as far back as the Fourth Century. So when you hear people, whether it's an Internet site or come on TV and they talk about that the rapture teaching was an 1830 teaching, that is an old theory. That theory has been washed up and it's out now. However, I don't want to go back to somebody saying it's here and here.

I want to go back to what the Apostle Paul said because it is found in the Bible.

Now basically here's what we come up with.

In the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul talks about that after his conversion, he went up into Arabia. And they're in Arabia, he received the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now we know from the book of Galatians that Mount Sinai is located in Arabia. Now if you will go back to Exodus chapter 19 and I challenge you to read this thoroughly sometime in the future maybe after you watch the tape here. But if you go to Exodus 19, Exodus 19 is a beautiful picture of what we call the catching up of the saints and you can read it in its entirety. It talks about that on the third day the people sanctify themselves at the base of the mountain. It He talks about there was a voice of the saints. And you can read it in its entirety. You know, it talks about that on the third day,

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