BARLEY, WHEAT AND GRAPES

BARLEY, WHEAT AND GRAPES

                I would like to revert now to a subject that I dealt with at some length a couple of years ago. Like I have said on numerous occasions, I believe that the resurrection and catching away of the church is presented in Revelation 14 just prior to the outpouring of God’s Wrath. The sequence is very plain there in chapters 14 through 17.

                But as I have also mentioned, there are hints, mainly in types and shadows, of a possible catching away (rapture) prior to that time. So I hold in my mind a certain amount of hope for a special resurrection of a group that we will call the “Barley Group.”

                First of all I would remind you of Jesus parable of the ten virgins. All ten of them were believers. They were all waiting for the Lord’s return. They all fell asleep. But when the shout of the Bridegroom came, five of them had oil for their lamps while five did not. The five with oil went in to the marriage feast and the door was shut.

                Now, since the foolish five were also believers and presumably born again, or at least have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, we can presume from our article “The Saving of our Souls” that at the very least their spirits were saved, but their salvation had not been made complete to the preserving of spirit, soul and body unto the coming of the Lord.

                They are not said to be forever lost, because they were counselled to buy oil from those who sell. No point in doing that if they are going to hell anyway right? So it appears that they had to go through the tribulation to be refined and purified as it says in Daniel 12. So what they had not accomplished in their walk with the Lord, they would now have to accomplish through persecution and even the giving up of their lives.

                So this is an example of the possibility of a duel and maybe even a triple harvest in the end times and that harvest is represented by the barley, the wheat and the grapes.

                The wheat and the grapes are dealt with in Revelation 1, for the wheat is harvested upward, while the grapes are reaped and cast into the winepress of God’s wrath. So the grapes in this case are the unbelievers.

                So if there is to be a barley harvest that precedes that harvest, it would be a harvest of overcomers who have overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They are the Bride that has made herself ready to stand without spot or wrinkle. They have made full use of the salvation so freely offered to every soul. They have been crucified with Christ and now it is Christ living in and through them, the hope of glory. They have run the race and finished the course. A crown of life awaits them.

                In Bible times in Israel the barley crop came first in the spring. Then came the Wheat crop in the heat of summer. Then in the fall came the grape harvest where the grapes were tossed into the vats so that the juice could be stomped out of them. But the way, this may indicate that their spirits may be saved even if their souls and bodies are not. The grape company was crushed in order to bring forth the wine.

                It was Dr. Stephen Jones who brought this forth in his book “The Laws of the Second Coming.” And it was after that that, I gave God permission to do whatever it would take in my life to make me an overcomer.

                All of us deserve to die. None of us deserves eternal life. It has been the great love of God who gave His Son to die in our place so that HE would receive what we deserved so that we could have what He deserved. None of us can presume to do something on our own that would qualify us to be saved. Salvation is something that was conceived, initiated, carried out and offered totally apart from any unworthiness on our part. This is exactly why we must have Christ in us as our hope of glory. It is His life that qualifies me for eternity.

                We can add absolutely nothing to His salvation, but this is where much of the church misses it. WE must enter by faith into His death and be raised up by faith into the power of His resurrection.

                “Jesus said unto them, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood HAS eternal life; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

                This is the same message given at the exodus when they smeared the blood on the doorposts and ate the whole Lamb. What Jesus did FOR us, He also does IN us. And we have to apply the blood and we have to eat His flesh. That is to say we take an active role in our salvation, but believing and receiving and obeying.

                In the story of Gideon, it was a loaf of barley that destroyed the Midianites. Likewise we see a parallel in Revelation 19 as the saints return with Jesus to the battle of Armageddon. They are called the armies of heaven. And even though it is Jesus alone that defeats the armies of the antichrist, it is the barley company that rides with Him.

                Not everyone that is saved is going to reign with Christ in His millennial kingdom. This honor is granted to them that overcome. To every one of the 7 churches, Jesus made special promises to them that overcome.

                It is not that some people work harder to qualify, rather it is because they entered into the work of Christ by faith. They believed Him and walked with Him. They acted on His Word. They lived by His power and not their own.

                I want to be one of those people, don’t you? That’s why we are pressing in, to know Him and to love Him and to be known by Him. There is nothing to be added to His salvation, but in it He has given us everything as pertaining to life and godliness and to us Jesus says. “If anyone wants to be my disciple, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” Luke 9:23.

                There is a price to be paid. It is a price that is nothing less than your all. Again Jesus said,  IF anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his o2wn cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:26, 27.

                These are tough sayings, but what Jesus is essentially saying is that there is an infinite gap between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God and the only way between them is through the cross and resurrection.

                This is why I feel constrained to shout out a warning. Much of the church is not going that way anymore. Words like these are foreign to their thinking, Nowadays they preach that you just need positive thinking and positive confession to be saved. But in it the Gospel is not being preached.

                If there is an infinite gap between kingdoms and the only passage way is through the death and resurrection, then certainly we cannot have one foot in each world.

                So the barley company is made up of those who have entered into Christ’s death and resurrection now and they are walking in newness of life. Those who are in the wheat company will have to be purified as through fire. (Remember, Barley is harvested by a gentle breeze. Wheat is separated from its chaff with violent threshing.) And why not believe the Gospel now? After all, it is the best of deals for Jesus said: “Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me HAS eternal life and does not come into judgment, but HAS passed out of death into life. John 5:24

                 This is not a call to legalism as some would think, but a call to enter fully into Christ, to die to this world, to come out of Babylon so that you will not receive of her plagues.

                Salvation is not the “fluffy, puffy, cotton candy, cross-less preaching and carnal living that is preached today. We must choose and we must stand.

                “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Satanic dimensions currently being breached by CERN) Ephesians 6:10-12)