During Passion Week, Jesus took His disciples to the Mount of Olives for a private teaching known as the Olivet Discourse. If you’ve been following my blogs, you will know that I believe this passage from that teaching refers to the Rapture:
“And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a trumpet blast, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. Learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. … But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” Matthew 24:30ff
I’ve been interpreting this to mean that while we cannot predict the DATE or the TIME of the Rapture, we can predict the SEASON.*
Earlier this week, a new thought popped into my noggin while I was in prayer.
What if Jesus was telling us the Rapture will occur WHEN the fig branches become tender and sprout leaves in Israel?
I googled and learned some interesting factoids about figs. For example, did you know that figs produce TWO crops? The BREBA fig crop forms on the previous season’s growth and ripens in Spring, while the MAIN fig crop forms on the new season’s growth and ripens in August to September.
The MAIN fig harvest coincides with SUKKOT, the Jewish fruit harvest festival.
But the BREBA crop coincides with PASSOVER.
Do you remember that the Olivet Discourse happened during Passion Week? And do you remember that time Jesus was hungry and cursed a fig tree because it didn’t have any fruit for Him?
The cursing of that fig tree happened the very day BEFORE the Olivet Discourse. And the reason Jesus EXPECTED fruit is because the fig tree had LEAVES.
Jesus’ lesson from the fig tree, taken in context, means a couple of things. One, that the branches of the fig become tender and sprout leaves in the SPRING which is around PASSOVER. And two, that at that time of year, a healthy tree is supposed to have ripe fruit … the first fruit of the growing season … already on it, all ready to eat.
IF Jesus was telling us the general time (not the date or hour) when He will Rapture the elect, then that time is APRIL.
Resources to review why I plan to be Rapture Ready THIS April:
https://polination.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/ill-be-rapture-ready-in-april-2014/
And here are two extras I’ve learned since then:
1. Rabbi Kaduri prophesied that the Messiah would appear to Israel only after Ariel Sharon’s death. Sharon passed away January 11, 2014.
2. A reader sent me this vision that a friend of his had shared with him five years ago:
I had this vision when I was wide awake and I could talk to the Angel that was showing me the vision. In this vision the Angel and I were walking and came upon a hill. I looked at the hill and there was some graves in it, they started opening up and people were coming out of them.
I asked the Angel, “What is this?”
He said, “It’s the dead in Christ being resurrected, just as God said they would be.” I then saw people floating upward out of their cars and houses but I was not going with them.
I said, “When will this happen?”
He replied, “First-fruits.”
Sources:
*I realize there are other interpretations for the fig tree. I have no problem with Bible passages have multiple meanings.
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