NEARLY 5,000,000,000 human beings are alive today. Of this incredibly large number, God has called and put into His Church in the last 50 years little more than 100,000. For every person God has put into His Church, there are 50,000 people He has not!
Why?
There is an astounding reason!
This vast majority, your Bible reveals, will be called later – most not until after Christ's return. These thousands of millions cannot come to Christ and become part of God's Church now – even if they try! Jesus said so, plainly, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him” (John 6:44). Comparatively speaking, God has been drawing only a few in this age, but for a great purpose.
Why has God called the few He has? For what purpose has God drawn and put into His Church His firstfruits? Has God drawn these few and put them into His Church, as some think, just so they can get salvation and enjoy the fellowship and social life of the local congregations?
God has a Master Plan pictured by seven annual festivals.
The first festival is Passover. It pictures the Messiah – Christ – who volunteered before the foundation of the world to be slain as the Passover Lamb, the Savior of the world (I Pet. 1:19-20; Rev. 13:8). That was accomplished in the spring of A.D. 31.
The second festival, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, pictures overcoming sin. The first humans, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God and sin entered the world. God then sentenced the human family to 6,000 years of spiritual exile, during which the human family is, as a whole, cut off from the possibility of salvation (except for those few He would choose for a special purpose).
We are now near the end of the first 6,000 years, during which humans have experimented with every imaginable form of government, religion, social and economic idea. Soon the fourth step in God's plan will occur – the return of Jesus Christ to restore the government of God on earth. This event is pictured by the fourth Holy Day, the Feast of Trumpets. It is after that event that the vast majority will be called to salvation in a world ruled and guided by God's Family. But before the vast majority can live in such a world and be taught the true way to salvation, rulers and teachers must be trained. That is where we who are the firstfruits of salvation in God's plan enter the picture!
We are now in the age of the Church. God is not working through isolated prophets, nor through independent Christians. He is working through a small group of tens of thousands of Spirit-begotten humans, organized and unified by His laws, His government, His truth.
God's Church is the means by which God is now preparing this world for Christ's return! It is through God's Church that He is preparing the future rulers and teachers of His Kingdom. God has laid the foundation; He is now beginning to build the world tomorrow through His Church today!
Those now called into God's Church are part of God's spiritual firstfruits – the first group to be offered salvation. Those now in God's Church have been called first – for the special PURPOSE of being prepared for God's Kingdom!
Once the Church is prepared and ready, God's firstfruits will become Christ's ruling and teaching assistants, helping teach the true way to salvation to everyone in the world tomorrow. They have been called for the special service of qualifying to eventually help bring the knowledge of salvation to the vast majority!
The firstfruits of salvation are pictured by God's third annual festival – the Feast of Firstfruits, which is called Pentecost in the New Testament. Let's look, now, at what traditional Christianity has no knowledge of – what the Bible reveals about the Feast of Firstfruits, God's Church and the third major step in God's Master Plan for the salvation of all mankind.
