If you think in terms of the pictures given us in the Word, there would be no confusion about the 144,000. The main picture in this instance is that of the harvest. The two harvests of the Spring Feasts are the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. With each there are the first fruits; we know that Yeshua was the First Fruit of the barley harvest because He died on Pesach and was raised on Yom HaBikkurim (First Fruits of the barley harvest). And others were raised with Him, Matthew 27:51-53, and were the wave offering of the first fruit sheaths, Leviticus 23:5, 10-11.
Next is the wheat harvest, which corresponds with the "Pentecost" in the New Testament, and the first fruits of the wheat harvest are the 144,000 which are named in Rev. 7 and represented by the man-child of Rev. 12, and appear with Yeshua in Rev. 14. The main harvest will occur during the great tribulation - this is when the most of the saints will be martyred - and saved. This is where the millions of saints are sanctified, and why the great tribulation is needed for the sake of those saints that need that outside pressure to become mature.
The 144,000 are special because they sanctified themselves, without the outside pressure because they were so self-disciplined and allowed Messiah to discipline them even further, before the tribulation and hence became Spiritually more mature and ready to be raptured before anyone else. These are represented by the loaves offering in Leviticus 23:17, and typified by the Church in Philadelphia, and the parable of the pearl of great price in Matthew 13:45-46.
The last harvest Feast is in the Fall, and as far as the saints are concerned, would correspond to the gleaning in Leviticus 19:9-10. The main harvest here though is that of the wicked, who are rounded up and punished. The Lord then sorts through the rest and picks out those that are saved, and corresponds to the Parable in Matthew 13:47-50.
In fact, I would encourage you to compare the seven parables in Matthew 13 to the letters to the seven Churches in Revelation 2-3, because they are directly correlated and in the same order.
Those of you that keep the "Old Testament" Law probably know what I'm talking about because when you keep Yehovah's commandments, like keeping the Sabbath, the Feast days, the Food Laws, etc., more is revealed to you than would be if you only studied them.
Revelation comes with obedience to the Word.
There are many more proofs and pictures in the Bible to prove this, but it's not my goal to prove a point but to encourage the saints to keep studying the Word and most of all obey and do what He says to do, both in the "Old" Testament and the "New."
We are very close to the end times and when things start kicking off, everything will be happening very rapidly; so rapidly you won't have time to think. Develop your spiritual reflexes now, like muscle memory of the spirit, so you will already be ready to react properly, no matter how fast it comes at you.
Praise Yehovah, our King is coming, soon!
Agree!
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