Address—Doug Buchanan
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I would like to sing the 1St 2 verses of hymn #64.
Oh, bright and light and sweet.
And God never.
Come.
In everything.
When the ice cream rolled on the sun.
It's gone.
Did I say the 1St 4 verses?
1St 4 verses. I'm sorry, let's continue on.
Yes.
Yeah, I'm there from home.
We begin with first Peter chapter one a few verses to introduce our subject.
First Peter chapter one and verse 3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Which according to his abundant mercy.
Have begotten us again unto a lively hope.
By the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
To an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven, for you who are kept, and then will drop down.
In verse 10.
Verse 9. Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls, of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently.
Who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you?
Searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify.
When it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would that should follow.
We have been enjoying in these meetings.
From the book of Ephesians and other Scriptures. The heavenly portion.
That is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I would like to try to go back.
And trace a little bit, beginning in the Old Testament, How God?
Hid those things in the Old Testament and revealed them to us in the new.
The purpose of God.
The Godhead.
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Planned this in the past eternity.
Has has uniquely.
Brought it out over the course of time.
Our New Testament, and especially with the Apostle Paul, was the key person whom God used to reveal open up.
Heavenly truth, but we've read here Peter too laid hold of it and he he comments about how even the Old Testament writers, they searched their own writings because they didn't understand the VO, the all the intent.
Now, in hindsight, we can go back and look and see.
It was not an afterthought with God to introduce the Gentiles into blessing.
It was not an afterthought for God to send His Son into the world.
To redeem mankind.
It was all a part of the plan.
We're living in a day when.
The truth of the Lord's coming and the heavenly portion has been propagated and and ministered in the Christian testimony.
And there's a turning away from it.
Back to occupation.
With the things of this earth.
This is the reason that I purpose to speak what I do today because if our hearts are grounded in this and we really see our heavenly portion.
Lay hold of it.
We ought not to go back and become occupied as earthly Christians.
Scripture itself tells us this is the snare that's coming in the last days. This is what we are contending with as we go through life.
It's not Even so much just terrorism and and wickedness and immorality, but it is becoming earthly minded.
In the Old Testament, and I'm briefly going to go over and refer to the Seven Feast of Jehovah which I've spoken on.
At other occasions.
But in the seven feasts of Jehovah, there are two of those feasts.
That refer and are prophetic of the present time in which we live.
They begin with the Passover.
Which is a prophetic picture of the coming of the Lord Jesus into this world.
There were three times the children of Israel to go up and celebrate.
When they got into the land of promise, those three times that they.
Went up to celebrate our prophetic of the three times that the Lord Jesus comes to earth.
The first is already passed as the Passover He came. The second we're still waiting for when He comes to take His heavenly people home to gather in the heavenly harvest. This is our subject, the last.
Time the children of Israel went up was at the Feast of Tabernacles, which was in the seventh month, and at that time they all went up. And it's prophetic of a future time when the Lord Jesus will be put on display and He will reign with His people here on earth, with the heavenly people associated with him.
But I my purpose in speaking to this afternoon is to concentrate on the part that applies to us.
If we go back to Exodus chapter 12.
And I I just want to read the first verse and make a comment on that.
This was when God began to reveal to Moses.
The whole subject matter which we're Speaking of, the seven feasts of Jehovah.
Notice in Genesis in Exodus chapter 12.
Verses one and two.
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The Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying.
This month shall be unto you the beginning of months.
It shall be the first month of the year to you.
And then he proceeds to tell them about the Passover.
This was a new beginning in the dealings of God with Israel. He was about to take them out of the land of Egypt and carry them into their land of promise, give them deliverance from slavery.
And we know, readily understand, it's a picture of how the Lord Jesus.
Was going to be that Lamb of God that would be the fulfillment of that.
But there's something here I want to comment on.
When the Lord introduced this to the children of Israel and Moses by Moses.
He started a new calendar.
Now that may not seem too significant.
I understand that the normal calendar, and there's a Jewish calendar to this day, begins in the fall in September, the time of the equinox.
When the Lord spoke this to Moses, it was the spring.
Equinox.
It was a new kind of a calendar.
What's significant about it?
My belief is this.
It changed the order of the two harvests.
It made the the wheat harvest the first harvest of the year.
And it made the fall harvest of the vineyards the last harvest of the year.
God was beginning to introduce.
His preferences as to heavenly things.
And so in this sequence of the following seven feasts of Jehovah.
The Feast of Firstfruits and the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost come first, and the Feast of Tabernacles comes last, and the other two associated with it.
Interesting.
I'd like to think that God gives priority.
To his heavenly people.
Over his earthly people.
We ought to be very thankful that we live in the present day.
When God is gathering a people for heaven.
During the Millennium, in the future time after the rapture of the Saints.
And the heavenly harvest is taken home, which is pictured in the Feast of Weeks.
Which was celebrated at the time of the wheat harvest in Israel.
That comes first.
Now in the calendar year.
And it follows.
The earthly blessing as pictured in the last three years.
And so I'm passing over quickly a lot of ground here. Umm, I trust that I don't leave lose people and my thoughts and, uh, expressions here.
Uh, let's umm.
Let's.
Let's go on to uh.
Let's go on to Exodus chapter 23 and justice quickly notice, uh, the three times that, uh, I spoke of these, the three times the children of Israel were to go up and make it just a few brief comments on this in Exodus chapter 23.
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Verse 14.
Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.
Thou shalt keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
That includes the Passover. Thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee at the time appointed of the month a bib.
For in it thou camest out from the Egypt, and none shall appear before me empty, and the feast of harvest, the first fruits of thy laborers, which thou hast sown in the field.
And the feast of Ingathering. Now this is the third one, which is at the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy laborers out of thy field, God, Lord, Jehovah, related to the people of Israel.
In this way, which I refer to as an agricultural people, perhaps that's why I take up this line of ministry because being a farmer, it, uh, I relate to that.
And it means, uh, something special to you when you work with the land and the harvest.
There are these two harvests are four months apart.
The wheat harvest in the land of Israel is more or less in May or June.
The fall harvest, of course is September, October ish.
And, uh, and that's the way it is. It's similar in southern Illinois. You go down to Texas and it's about the same as the land of Israel. And so these feasts went, were celebrated in conjunction with their annual laborers of sowing of seed and harvesting it. And then when they had harvested it, they were to go up and to rejoice before the Lord Jehovah.
In the harvest that he'd given them.
All of this is a picture of.
How God Himself also would rejoice in the gathering in of His people with Him to celebrate it together.
And so the experience of doing it here on earth prepared their hearts.
For what God would enjoy with them.
In heaven or on earth?
As it corresponds to their lot. And so we today can go back and see how God gave this in the Old Testament as a picture of His ways.
Though they did not understand, no doubt, of the prophetic view of what was had happened, but they did. They could well relate to how they had been delivered from Egypt and brought into a land flowing with milk and honey, and where they could rejoice together in peace and protection from their enemies.
Here on Earth.
Now we look back and see how God had planned this all.
Now, if we'll go on to chapter, uh, the Book of Leviticus, chapter 23, I want to comment briefly on the Feast of Firstfruits.
Leviticus, chapter 23.
This is the third feast. This feast that we're going to read of is a prophetic picture of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, because it is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ that opens up this new creation of which we belong. When we are saved and when we accept the Lord Jesus our Savior, we're born again.
We become a part of a fruit of the travail of the Lord Jesus soul and going down to death and rising again with a life beyond death. And this is the life that's communicated to us through the gospel.
The part we don't have yet is the change of the body that's still waiting, that will take place at the rapture, that will take place when He gathers all the heavenly souls home to him. But it is all dependent on the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Peter speaks about that in those verses that we read.
By the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
So here in Leviticus 23.
And in verse 20.
Let's see if I'm alright.
No, it's earlier.
Verse 10.
Leviticus 23, verse 10.
Speak under the children of Israel, and say unto them, when you become into the land which I give unto you.
And shall reap the harvest thereof. Ye shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest.
Under the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted for you.
On the Morrow after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it.
You ought to offer on that day when you waved the sheaf, a heel lamb without blemish.
Of the first year for burnt offering unto the Lord, and the meat offering thereof shall be 2/10 deals of fine flour mingled soil.
An offering made by fire unto the Lord for sweet savour, and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine.
The fourth part of the hen ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the self same day that ye have brought an offering unto your God. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, in your in all your dwellings.
First Corinthians chapter 15 gives us the key to the understanding of this. We'll briefly read it.
First Corinthians, chapter 15.
Verse 20.
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead, For as in Adam all die, Even so in Christ shall all be made alive, but every man in his own order.
Christ the firstfruits afterward, they that are Christ at his coming.
It's wonderful to think of the Lord Jesus.
And the the consequence of his going down into death, and robbing death of its sting, and bringing life and incorruptibility to light through the gospel, that there is a man who has overcome death.
And there is the possibility now that a man can ascend up into heaven.
And God rightfully raises him there, not just as he was before, ever as the sun, but now as a man, the seed of the woman.
Who enters heaven?
We have worshiped him there this morning and we are called to be a people associated with him.
And this was his desire.
And the New Testament is full of teaching as to his.
Presence there in heaven.
Stephen a little later looked up and saw him there standing and so on. The Apostle Paul was taken up there.
And various testimonies in the New Testament of this new creation.
That was opened up.
And so that is the reason in picture why the children of Israel were prohibited of tasting the wheat.
Before.
A man had taken that sheaf of firstfruits and presented it to Jehovah.
Impossibility of a resurrection life that this was all a picture of until.
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Jesus rose again.
And could be presented to God, that perfect man.
The resurrection life.
God could not keep him out of heaven. God must honor him. He was rejected on earth, and so God says I must give him a higher Kingdom, a higher sphere.
Than just earth.
And this was his plan from the beginning. That's why he allowed sin and death to come into the world.
He knew he was going to send his son into the world to deliver us and give us this life that could ascend up into heaven to be with him.
And so when we see this, how is it that we easily get occupied with earthly things?
I confess this because it's easy for me.
It's easy to get taken up with harvesting your wheat or your corn or your job and these kind of things and they are necessary, but we cannot let them eclipse the reasons of why.
God has saved us and what his purpose is, is not to leave us here on earth to inherit some blessing, a Kingdom here.
The Kingdom is forming here now, yes, but that's the earth is not its destiny. The parables in Matthew 13 of the Kingdom of Heaven take this theme and develop it in the New Testament in a marvelous way. Those seven parables, and a lot of them used the very imagery of wheat and the sowing of the seed and the harvest and the gathering into the barn. And so it all dovetails together.
In God's ways.
This is the heavenly harvest of which we are favored to be a part. And so even though.
Uh, no, let's, uh, let's go.
Let's go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and notice a verse.
It's already been quoted, but we can turn to it. Second Corinthians, chapter 5.
You all readily see my inabilities to remember and quote correctly and so I will be safe in reading 2nd Corinthians 5 and.
Verse 14 For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all. That they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth?
No way, no man after the flesh, though we've known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know ye Him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.
The New Testament in these verses develop what the feast of firstfruits was, a picture of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the consequences if one man died for all, then they're all that may be wrecking themselves dead as to the things of this life and participate now in a higher order of things, the new creation.
How wonderful it is to be born again.
And that's the life that we relate to God with.
That's the life that He gives so we, His creatures, can enjoy fellowship with Him in His presence, not just as mere people on earth, but as having life. Life that will go on everlasting life.
The body may die.
Or if we are alive, when the Lord comes, it will be changed.
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Will put on new bodies.
All of this is the reason.
They could not partake of the wheat until the first fruit, the sheaf of first fruits, had been presented to Jehovah.
How Jehovah must have looked down when those those priests would take that.
It doesn't say which day of the week. This is another interesting thing.
Wheat harvest does not always start on the same day every year. It depends on the climate and the temperature and so forth. Some years it's earlier than others. Down in Illinois. This year it was almost a week later, maybe five days later than normal.
And so it must have varied over the course of the years and the children of Israel.
It happened that the year that the Lord Jesus was crucified, it happened to be.
Three days.
After.
The Passover.
And the Lord Jesus rose.
On that day.
The priest would would whenever they determined that the wheat was at the point ready to harvest. It was not a question of times and seasons or months.
Of the year, it was totally dependent when the wheat was ready for harvest.
At that point they took the sheaf.
The wheat and put it together. Perhaps it was barley or wheat or both. It does. Scripture does not say. They're very similar crops. They took this sheaf and waved it before Jehovah along with the sacrifices that we've noticed. There was no sin offering with this sacrifice.
Because it was a picture of the Lord Jesus.
And so all of that is there.
Prophetic of the Lord Jesus resurrection.
Now we go on to what follows.
The next feast back in Leviticus 23 is the Feast of Weeks. That means seven weeks of 7 + 1 day makes 50 days. In the New Testament, it's called the Feast of Pentecost.
Let's go back into Leviticus 23 and just read a part of it. I wanna be quickly here. I'm not. I'm not so interested in explaining the feasts of Jehovah as what they are a prophetic of back in Leviticus 23 and.
We'll begin with verse 15.
And ye shall count unto you from the Morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering.
Seven Sabbath shall be complete even unto the Morrow. After the 7th Sabbath shall ye #50 days, and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord, and ye shall bring out of your habitation two wave loaves of two tense deals.
They shall be a fine flower, they shall be bacon with leaven. They are the first fruits unto the Lord. And then it goes on and, and, and, explains the, the SAT, the, the other, uh, sacrifices that accompanied it.
This is a picture.
Of the gathering together of the harvest of wheat.
There were seven weeks in between the two. That's a perfect time to harvest. That is what began on the day of Pentecost and is still going on to this day and will terminate when the Lord Jesus comes back.
To gather in His heavenly people.
And that is what is pictured in these two loaves. The loaves were now not just the beginning of the the heads of wheat that were roasted as they as they began as in the early part of the harvest.
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You know, think of yourself as kind of hungry and maybe your food has run out and there's the wheat out in the field there and, uh, you're told you cannot eat of that wheat until the sheaf of first fruits had been offered.
And so they had to wait.
There's a reference to that in Luke 6 where the disciples walked through the fields and plucked the grains, and it specifically says it was the 2nd Sabbath after the first.
That means that that was after the sheaf of firstfruits had been offered up.
The second Sabbath after and so it was permitted to eat the wheat.
And the Lord justifies the disciples eating that wheat as they walk through the fields.
The results of the Lord Jesus, death and resurrection are.
That the blessing and the gospel can go out.
And this harvest of souls can be gathered in. And so the the the king, the king, the parables of the Kingdom of heaven take this up and how it they explain how the harvest at the end will be.
When the Lord gathers the wheat into his barn and we have the tares that are left in the field and so on. And this is all prophetic of what will happen when the Lord comes and how the Lord will gather.
Into his barn, the heavenly harvest. And so it all is completed in the New Testament, and we are living at the time close to when the Lord comes back.
During these last days when the harvest is about finished.
There's an urgency.
Because.
Afterward.
There will be no souls taken to heaven except there is a one conditional thing, but we won't go into that. And in the in Leviticus 23 there is some grain left in the field referring prophetic of the some souls that will be martyred during the tribulation. They will be killed and they will partake of the resurrection life and they will be raised in a special resurrection of Revelation. Chapter 20 talks about that but basically.
After the rapture of the Lord's coming.
When He takes the heavenly harvest home, all future blessings from that point on is going to be earthly, and God is going to then take up His earthly people, Israel.
And they are going to be the ones who will largely preach the gospel of the Kingdom, and there will be blessing on earth, and souls will go on and live for the whole Millennium if they walk in obedience.
There will be no death, there will be death, but there will be no death of those who walk in obedience and faith, and they will partake of what the last feast is a picture of the Feast of Tabernacles.
And so it is important for us today to understand the times that we live in, not mix up heavenly things with earthly things. This is the exhortations that we get in the New Testament, and this is in our book of Ephesians.
Let's turn over to Philippians Chapter 3.
The last two verses.
Well notice, umm, notice what Paul says in verse 10. I think this was referred to in our in our reading meetings Philippians chapter 3 and verse 10. Paul is speaking here.
And he says that I may know him as Jesus in resurrection and glory.
And the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, that is the practical experience of it. He didn't doubt his salvation, or doubt that he would be in heaven when the Lord came and took his.
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His own home then down in the last two verses of the chapter it says.
Umm, well.
Let me let me begin reading with verse 18, because there's an exhortation here, and we need these exhortation sometimes for many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame.
Who mind earthly thanks for our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body.
That it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working, whereby He is able even to subdue all things even unto Himself.
Paul here living in the wilderness, experience in this book and suffering and in prison.
Unfolds to us the why he strove for the heavenly harvest to obtain that in a practical enjoyment of how he went through life.
Instead of complaining about how hard the bonds were, he looked at them as a means of learning of what Christ had to go through to redeem his soul and present him to God.
In a resurrection life.
And so he wanted the full experience of it by how he lived. And so these things are not just something for the intellect, there's something for us to how we live our lives practically.
The more we live our lives in conformity to these things like Paul did.
The more I believe the reality of resurrection life will mean to us.
And the hope that is ours and the less we will be conformed to this world.
And occupied with earthly things like it says there in verse 19 who mind earthly things. Satan loves to dress up this world and make it attractive.
I have a nature that gravitates to that thing.
But I also have.
Nature, A born again nature that loves God and is attracted to Christ in glory.
And would seek to be a follower of him and reach on to those things in heaven. And so this is what we're faced with here in this late day here.
The feast of Pentecost.
Began at Pentecost in Acts 2.
But let us not just think that that was the full development of what it speaks of.
That was the initiation of it. That was the beginning of this of the weeks, if you might say.
When the harvest was going on.
And when souls could be gathered in?
And so the last nearly 2000 years souls have been gathered in and what is their destiny?
Will they just be raised here on Earth?
The Apostle Paul, Peter, John, the martyrs down through the ages.
Our brother referred to the one who was martyred in in Scotland there and and broke bread one last time with fellow believers. Will he just be raised to a life here on earth?
To live again.
Oh, he will be raised to heaven.
And enjoy the Lord's presence there. What a hope.
And so in Philippians in in in, uh, First Corinthians 15.
I want to I want to call attention to a thing or two there and the rest of our time.
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Returning back to First Corinthians 15.
I believe Paul develops this subject further. We can't read the whole chapter, but it's called the resurrection chapter. It tells us how the Lord who is able that we read of in Philippians, He's, he's able to raise those bones and present them in new bodies before God. He's the same one who created the first creation.
He's the same one who rose from the dead in resurrection life.
And he is able to take the bodies of those who have died in faith.
And raise them again and present them to God.
In an acceptable way. And he's going to do that. And that's our hope. So in Rhode Island in First Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 23. Notice how it reads.
Well verse 22 Says as in Adam will die, Even so in Christ shall all be made alive, but every man in his own order.
Then he talks about the two parts.
Christ the first fruits that has already happened.
He's the beginning of the first fruits, afterward they that are Christ at his coming. That's the second part of the first fruits. That's the part that touches us. That's the part where we believers in the Lord Jesus will also be raised. And so that's what is presented in the feast of weeks there when they took the two loaves, wave loaves, and presented them to Jehovah.
In the same way that the sheaf of first fruits had been waved before Jehovah.
But what you notice in the Feast of Pentecost or Firstfruits was that there was a sin offering and the loaves were bacon with leaven. Because they are not a picture of just Christ, they are a picture of the believers.
A testimony and so the full fruit of the wheat is not just grain that is toasted, but it's grain that is ground up made into bread, the the the bread of life, the bread that sustains our life. And and so it's a picture of believers that are a part of what God reaps.
For heaven to have a people, isn't it that wonderful to to think that the Lord Jesus, that's why he changed the months of the year so this this harvest would be first.
The harvest on earth will fall and there will be a people they will actually have borne new life to. They will have a born again life and in a new way, in a broader way here on earth.
And and so that's not the subject before us, but so I won't go into that, but here in First Corinthians 15 would drop down and read just a few more verses.
Umm umm, verse 24 it speaks about. They then cometh in when he shall deliver it up to Kingdom, even the Father. Now that's the he passes on to the very end of time.
And so on. But now we'll drop down to uh, uh, verse, umm, verse 35. There's a question here about how resurrection life takes, how resurrection happens. How is it possible to take out of dust and raise it up and make it into a living being to present to God?
The natural man can't can't get this, but Paul explains it here.
Verse 35 But some will say, how are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come? Thou fool, That which thou sowest is not quickened. Quickened means given life, except it die, though death has to come in first.
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And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but bare grain.
It may chance a week or some other grain. To me, it's very significant that the word wheat is used here because this is connection with the whole general picture that we're Speaking of, of the wheat harvest. It's not talking about the fruit of the vine. It's not talking about olives or any of the other fruits of the fall harvest. It's talking about the first harvest, the wheat harvest. And this applies to us and so.
Uh, it receives a new kind of a body when the week when the seed is sown, it's bare grain that connects us up with the parable of the sower. And the sower was the Lord Jesus and he sows the seed. The word of God is sown in the hearts of men and it depending on how it finds lodging in our hearts, whether it's received or whether it's rejected, whether the cares of life.
Choke it out, or whether the birds pluck it away or whatever.
That causes it to either bear fruit or not. And so it is in the lives of believers today when we believe the gospel. That is the bare grain seed sown in our hearts that finds a lodging and grows up its life. It's the new life that we receive.
And that life goes on.
And so would God that there would be a lot of fruit individually, but if we mix up and confuse heavenly things and earthly things, there will not be.
Lot of fruit in our lives and so it all fits together. God here sows the seed. It's sown as bare grain. And so we have laid aside many of our loved ones.
Who have died in faith and we believe they're going to rise again. And together with the living who believe. It's all explained in this chapter.
And so there is, uh, God giveth it a body, verse 38 as it hath pleased him, we talk about what our bodies will be like when we're raised again, and that the dead.
Or when we're changed and when the dead are raised again. We don't know completely what it's going to be like, but it he gives it a body that pleases Him, and it will be a body that's suitable to live with him in glory. How wonderful.
And so he uses the illustration of different kinds of flesh on the earth, of flesh of men and beasts and so on. And so he explains in, in, in very, uh, uh, easy to understand terms how God makes different kinds of bodies. And, and then verse 40 even says there, there are celestial bodies and their bodies terrestrial. That means earthly, that is God makes some bodies for heaven. Angels have heavenly bodies.
Or, or they can at least take what maybe their spirits, but they are suitable for heaven in that sense.
And so God can do all of this and then if we go on down in verse, uh, umm.
Verse 40, Verse 45. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.
And so when you go to a cemetery, you lay aside a loved one, you sew up a natural body, but when it rains, when it is raised again, it will be a spiritual body suitable to God. All of this is going to happen at the rapture. All of this is pictured in that time when Israel waved those two loaves before Jehovah.
And the heavenly harvest was represented in those. And so all of those people from, from, from uh, Abelon who died in faith in the Old Testament are going to participate at that moment.
It's all dependent on the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus and they are all going to have a heavenly portion in our time is almost up. I believe that's why in John 14 we just turn there. In closing UMM John's Gospel chapter 14.
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Where the Lord Jesus opens up heaven for the first time in the Gospels.
And he's going there.
In verse two it says in my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.
The Lord Jesus.
Was now beginning to reveal heavenly things in this Upper Room ministry.
He had been rejected on earth, He had been re presented to be received, and if they hadn't received him, the earthly blessing could have been introduced there. But God knew beforehand. The same one who changed the calendar.
To to begin in the spring instead of the fall knew all of this ahead of time. And so the heavenly part must happen 1St. And so that develops our brother Bill referred to it in the how even in the book of the Acts until the stoning of Stephen, the earthly part was still being offered. But God knew that the heavenly part was to take precedence and that's really what he wanted. And so he said, I would have told you.
If I hadn't had this better plan to reveal to you now, Now I'm telling you that in my father's house are many mansions. So Abel or Moses or Abraham or no one in the Old Testament is going to be disappointed that there were only raised here on earth when they appear at the rapture, at the coming of the Lord.
May the Lord help us to distinguish earthly things in heavenly light. Clothes singing a couple verses of a hymn.
244.
Wicked dressing the 1St 3 verses maybe?
The praise and blessed morning.