The Great Harvest Is Coming!

As Christians, we are living in-between 2 seasons. We are in-between the first coming of Jesus Christ and the second coming of Jesus Christ. Did you know that God provided us with annual reminders of these 2 seasons with a gap of time set in-between representing where we are now? These annual reminders are called the Lord’s Appointed Festivals which God outlined in Leviticus 23.

God instituted these festivals with Israel as a reminder of what He had done for them and His promises to them. However, these Appointed Festivals also possess a deep prophetic significance to us today as they foreshadow Jesus Christ and God’s plan for ALL of mankind.

The first set of festivals occur in the spring season and include Passover, Days of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost. These spring biblical festivals were prophetically fulfilled at the first coming of Jesus through his death, resurrection and giving of the Holy Spirit.

The next set of God’s festivals occur in the autumn season and include the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles. These exciting fall festivals are awaiting their fulfillment with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It all begins with the prophetic fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets when the final trumpet call will be sounded at the return of Jesus Christ as we read in
I Thessalonians 4:16-17,

“For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”

The next fall festival, the Day of Atonement, follows 10 days later. The future fulfillment of this day concerns the repentance and redemption of ALL the nations when they will look upon the one they have pierced and recognize Jesus as the Messiah which we find in Zechariah 12:10. And Jesus will cleanse them from all sin as we read in Zechariah 13:1.

The final fall festival is The Feast of Tabernacles, which God established as a time of rejoicing the ingathering of the year-end harvest. This foreshadows the promised Kingdom of God when ALL nations will flow to Jerusalem to worship the Lord and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles as we read in Zechariah 14:16. It will be a time of great rejoicing as the Lord gathers in His great harvest.

Deuteronomy 16:13-15 provides a beautiful picture of this festive time of rejoicing the year-end harvest,

“[13]Celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. [14] Be joyful at your festival—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns. [15] For seven days celebrate the festival to the Lord your God at the place the Lord will choose. For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.”

At the return of Christ, our joy will surely be complete as it will be the ultimate Great Harvest as we read in Revelation 14:14-16,

“I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, “Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.”

As we live in-between the seasons of the first coming and the second coming of Jesus Christ, let us not give up. Let us continue to persevere and be diligent in all we do as we await the return of our Lord and Savior as we read in James 5:7-8,

“Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.”

Be patient and stand firm because the Great Harvest is coming!!
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