We mentioned previously that the witnesses surrounding us are interested in the revelation of the meaning of the last three feasts of the Jews.

The Blowing of Trumpets announces the coming of the war of God against His enemies in His people. We are moving today into an awareness that spiritual warfare is beginning to take place.

The Day of Atonement speaks of our being reconciled to God in our spirit, our soul, and finally in our body when every other enemy has been brought into subjection to the Lord Jesus. We can rest assured we shall never be resurrected into a body filled with an abundance of the Life of God until the enemies in our inward nature have been completely subdued. We are given to eat of the Tree of Life only as we overcome the enemies of God. The last enemy to be destroyed is physical death; the other enemies have to be overcome first.

The last and greatest of the Jewish convocations is the feast of Tabernacles. The feast of Tabernacles is fulfilled in us as Christ is formed in us and then the Father and the Son come to inhabit forever that which has been formed in us. We are to be filled with all the fullness of God.

All of this finally shall be housed in our resurrected flesh and bones. Then our resurrected flesh and bones shall be covered within and without with the resurrection Life of God. This is the climax of redemption, the perfection promised to all the witnesses of God. They are learning of this today as the revelation is given to the saints on the earth.

We have learned from the witnesses of the past. Now they are learning from us. The whole Body of Christ is growing up in the Head, coming to maturity together—maturity as measured by the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Once this entire cloud of witnesses, including those on the earth, have been brought to maturity, the Lord Jesus will call them all up to meet Him in the clouds. Then the whole host, led by the Commander in Chief, will descend on the white war stallions and deliver Jerusalem from Antichrist and the False Prophet.

This is the coming of the Lord, as portrayed in the fourth chapter of First Thessalonians.

We believe Jesus died and rose again and so we believe God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. (I Thessalonians 4:14—NIV)

"God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him."

And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. (Matthew 24:31—NIV)

When the Lord returns He will bring His elect from the four winds. Wherever His witnesses are living and working, from there they shall be gathered together to the Lord.

We are speaking now of all the witnesses of God, from the time of Abel to the present.

This vast multitude of saints will return with the Lord and then descend from His position in the air to reclaim their bodies from the ground or from wherever they were interred.

To be continued.