First Fruits? Or False Fruits?

[Study adapted from the video “First Fruit? Or False Fruit?“, from the series Establishing the Head of the Year.]

“Father Yahweh, Father, thank you for everything. Father, please show me what you want me to teach your people today. Father, what is the most important thing I could possibly say to your people today? Father, please show me, please give me your words. Thank you, Father. What? You want me to teach them how to count to one? And you want me to teach them the difference between green and brown? And you want me to teach them that, in order to be Yeshua’s disciple, they actually have to do what Yeshua says? Father, are you sure…? Yes Father, Thank you, Father. How am I going to do that…? Father, please give me your words to speak. Thank you, Father. In Yeshua’s name, amein.”

Today, we want to talk about what it is to be the first.

Now, we all know what it is to be first-in-line. We also know what it is to come in first in a race. We know what it is to be the firstborn or the first fruits of our family. But what would you think if you were first-in-line and someone from the middle of the line was taken and placed as first, in front of you? How would you feel? And how would you feel if you had won a race, but they took the middle runner of that race and called him the first instead, and gave him the gold medal? And what would you think if they took the middle child and replaced you as the firstborn child, and they went to give him the inheritance? How would you feel? Would it feel right to you? Or would it seem like some kind of a wrong, some kind of injustice?

Or how would you feel if you really wanted something special, so you paid a lot of money to get the very first item of limited production? You paid extra for it, you wanted the very first one, and they told you that you would receive the first one. But then you found out later that they did not give you the first one. Instead, they just gave you something from the middle of the production run. And that they gave the true first copy to someone else a month earlier. How would you feel?

Now, picture how would you feel if you were Yahweh, and you knew that there were some barley observers who were teaching the people that they should not bring the first fruits of barley to Yahweh, to give thanks for the crop. But rather, the people should just take some random sampling from the middle of the crop and pretend that it was the first fruits. What if there were some teachers that were telling the people to bring the mid-fruits, or the false fruits, rather than the first fruits? How would you feel? Especially if you had told your people (Israel) repeatedly, again and again,

“I want you to be careful to do what I tell you to do. I do not want you adding things. I do not want you taking a bunch of things away. But I want you to take care to keep the commandments exactly how I tell you to do them. And there are reasons for this. And if you do not keep My commandments, you are keeping your own commandments.”

How would you feel?

Well, we are going to talk about all these things and how they fit into the anti-Messiah’s calendar in this study. Stay tuned. This is information that affects you and your family.

In many of our studies, including “Ancient Hebrew Wedding” and The Torah Calendar, we show that Yahweh’s feasts are effectively dates between the Bridegroom Yeshua and His bride, Nazarene Israel. And when you have a date with the Son of the Creator of the universe, it pays to be there to meet the Bridegroom on time, doing what He says to do. To not show up is basically like standing Him up. It is not a real good way to indicate interest in the relationship. And to show up without doing the things that He says to do shows a real lack of respect, as well as a real lack of interest in keeping His Father’s words.

So, what are His Father’s words? What does His Father want us to do?

As we saw in The Torah Calendar, His Father wants us to establish Rosh HaShanah (the head of the year) when two things happen. The priesthood is to declare Rosh HaShanah (the Hebrew New Year) when the first crescent sliver of the new moon is physically seen from the land of Israel, and at the same time, when we also know we are going to be able to bring Him the very first sheaf (the first fruits) of the aviv barley on the day of Yom HaNafat HaOmer (the Wave Sheaf Offering). And Yom HaNafat HaOmer must come 15 to 21 days after the new moon, on the first day of the week, following the Passover.

Before we talk about this requirement of 15 to 21 days, first, we should explain about the Hillel II Calendar, or the Jewish (Rabbinical) Calendar. A lot of people have learned with the Hillel II Calendar, which has errors in it. For instance, the Hillel II Calendar says that Rosh HaShanah (the Hebrew New Year) is declared in the seventh month, at the end of the growing season (or in the fall). That is basically 180 degrees out of sync with Scripture. As we show in The Torah Calendar, in “Aviv Barley Simplified”, and in other places, Yahweh’s word tells us that His calendar begins at the beginning of the growing season with the ripening of the aviv barley. So, just for the duration of this study, let us just sort of put the rabbinical calendar off to one side and let us focus more on what Yahweh’s word says.

Now, we are trying to find out what is so special about 15 to 21 days. Okay. On Rosh HaShanah, the first crescent sliver of the new moon is physically sighted from the land of Israel at the same time we know that there will be the first fruits of aviv barley 15 to 21 days later. Passover comes 14 days after Rosh HaShanah is declared. And then the first fruits of aviv barley must be ready to present on the day of the Yom HaNafat HaOmer, as the wave sheaf offering, 15 to 21 days after Rosh HaShanah is declared.

As shown in the chart, Passover can fall on any day of the week.

PASSOVER WEEK
Passover can fall on any day in this week
OMER	2nd day	3rd day	4th day	5th day	6th day	7th day

Passover can fall on the first day of the week (Sunday on the Gregorian calendar). It can fall on the second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth day. It can fall on the seventh day, Sabbath. It does not matter. But whatever day the Passover falls on during that week, the omer (the wave sheaf offering) is going to always be on the first day of the following week.

Here is one example. We see that if Rosh HaShanah happens to fall on the first day of the week (Gregorian Sunday), then Israel is going to hold the Passover 14 days later, on the seventh-day Sabbath. And then the omer offering is offered 15 days after Rosh HaShanah, on the first day of the week (the day after Passover).

1 ROSH	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14 PASS
15 OMER

Again, it does not matter what day of the week the Passover falls on. The omer offering is still going to be held on the first day of the following week. In this case, 15 days after Rosh HaShanah. That is the shortest condition that can occur.

Now, suppose Rosh HaShanah fell on the second day of the week (Gregorian Monday). This would be an example of the longest condition.

	1 ROSH	2	3	4	5	6
7 .	8	9	10	11	12	13
14 PASS	15	16	17	18	19	20
21 OMER

When we count 14 days from Rosh HaShanah, we see that Passover is going to take place on the first day of the week (Gregorian Sunday). The omer (first fruits) offering is always going to be offered on the very first day of the following week, no matter what day of the week the Passover falls on. So, we see that, in this case, we would have 21 days in between Rosh HaShanah and the omer offering.

So, here we have both a 15-day condition and a 21-day condition.

So, whenever the new moon of Rosh HaShanah is seen, the priesthood must decide whether the barley going to be aviv in 15 days or in 21 days. And we will define the term aviv a little later.

Now, it is critical to get the timing right on this. Because if we declare the head of the year correctly, all the rest of the feasts line up and fall into place. But if we do not time the head of the year correctly, all the rest of the feasts are going to be off in their timing. So, it is very critical that we have the definitions correct.

The problem is that every year we have some Karaite and Messianic barley search teams who apply wrong definitions of the wave sheaf. They incorrectly define what the wave sheaf is (or what it should be) in two different ways. My goal is for you to educate yourself on this so that you can see the problems as they come up this coming year. Because these search teams are going to do the same thing they always do. They are going to define the wave sheaf wrong, which typically makes them late in declaring Rosh HaShanah by one month or possibly even two months or more. So basically, they are not declaring the New Year on Yahweh’s time, nor are they observing Yahweh’s feasts according to His word.

What happens is that these particular search groups are effectively standing up Bridegroom Yeshua, and teaching others to do the same. Once again, that is not something anyone should do who wants to be taken as the bride. If we want Yeshua to take us as His bride then we need to honor Him by being where He wants us when He wants us there, doing the things He says to be doing. And not making up our own commandments by adding things and taking things away.

There are some things that are going to help us to be where Yeshua wants us to be, doing what Yeshua wants us to be doing. One of these things is to be able to count to one. The other thing is to be able to tell the difference between green and brown. So let us look at the definition of this wave sheaf (omer) that we are supposed to offer on Yom HaNafat HaOmer, 15 to 21 days after Rosh HaShanah.

From two weeks and a day (15 days) to three weeks (21 days) after we physically sight the new moon from the land of Israel, we are going to have to present a barley first fruit offering. And there are some rules to what we present to Yahweh. Among those is that it must be offered somewhere in between 15 to 21 days after Rosh HaShanah. Another thing is it must be our very first and our absolute best barley that we give to Yahweh. Because this barley wave sheaf is symbolic of Yeshua. And even if you are Orthodox, or Karaite, or some other faith, you should be able to see that the wave sheaf is symbolic of something. Well, the wave sheaf is symbolic of Messiah. So, it is important that we present the wave sheaf in the correct way. If you want to read more on this, I encourage you to read our study in The Torah Calendar and on “Aviv Barley Simplified”.

But why does the wave sheaf offering have to be first of the aviv barley? What is the big deal about truly bringing Him our first fruits, and why are some people against us bringing our very first fruits? Well, let us look at what happened in Genesis, chapter 4, with Qayin (Cain) and Havel (Abel).

B’reisheet (Genesis) 4:3-5
3 And in the process of time it came to pass that Qayin [Cain] brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to Yahweh.
4 Hevel [Abel] also brought of the firstborn [bekorah] of his flock and of their fat [choicest part]. And Yahweh respected Hevel and his offering,
5 but He did not respect Qayin and his offering. And Qayin was very angry, and his countenance fell.

[Hevel brought of his firstborn (his very best).]

We see here that Qayin did not bring anything special as an offering to Yahweh. Maybe he just brought in a harvest, took some things from the middle of the harvest, and brought them to Yahweh.

Maybe Qayin figured, ‘Here is a tenth. Yeah, Yahweh would be happy with that.” Well, Yahweh was not happy with Qayin’s offering.

But Havel his brother brought of the bekorah (the firstborn) of his flock and of their fat, meaning Havel brought of the choicest part (the very first and best) to Yahweh. And Yahweh respected Havel and his offering but He did not respect Qayin and his ‘just bring Him something’ offering. And Qayin was very angry, his countenance fell, and later he slew Havel his brother. Why? Because Havel had brought of his very firstborn and of his best as his offering to Yahweh. It is a big difference between just bringing something and bringing your best.

I do not know if you have ever had employees, but if you have, did you ever have an employee that just offered you their lowest quality and lowest effort work? They are there, they are making an offering, they are putting in their hours, but there is not really any care to what they are giving you? Versus someone who truly brought you their very best? Are you not able to tell when someone is really trying to do their best for you? Do we think that just maybe Yahweh can tell, also?

Let us take a look at the meaning of the term firstborn (bekorah) that is used here in Genesis.

Strong’s Hebrew (OT) Concordance:
H1062 ְּבְּכֹרָה בְּכוֹרָה bek-o-raw’, bek-o-raw’ Feminine of H1060; the firstling of man or beast; abstractly primogeniture: – birthright,firstborn (-ling).

Okay, we see that the firstborn has to do with being born first or having the birthright. So, which one is the first? Which one is the first-ling? Which one is the firstborn? It is number one, right? Okay, it is not a big secret. It is not too hard to figure out. So why do so many people have problems figuring it out?

Strong’s Hebrew (OT) Concordance:
H1060 בְּכוֹר bekôr, bek-ore’ From H1069; firstborn; hence chief: – eldest (son), first-born (-ling).

We look up the reference to H1060 because we like to do so. It is from H1069. And once again, it means the firstborn hence the chief, leader, or the eldest son. So again, which position is it? Is it second son? Or the third son? Is it the fourth son or the fifth? Oh, no. It is the first son.

We look up this reference to H1069, which is bakar, a primitive root meaning to burst the womb okay.

Strong’s Hebrew (OT) Concordance:
H1069 ּ בָּכַר bâkar, baw-kar’ A primitive root; properly to burst the womb, that is, (causatively) bear or make early fruit (of woman or tree); also (as denominatively from H1061) to give the birthright: – make firstborn, be firstling, bring forth first child (new fruit).

Now, let us see. Which child bursts the womb? Is it the second child or the middle child? Oh! It is the first child. Count to one. First child. How is it that the Karaites and the (especially) the Messianic cannot figure this out? To qualify as the first fruits, you must be the fruit that bursts the womb. Whether it is the early fruit of a woman, tree, or of a barley plant, firstborn always means the first fruit. It never means anything else ever in Scripture.

We are talking about having the birthright. Why? Because it is the first make, the firstborn, the first-ling. Meaning, to bring forth the first child. How is it that the Karaites cannot figure this out? How is it that the Messianic groups cannot figure this out? This is not a complicated concept.

Well, I remember when I was living in Israel that my Israeli friend once said, “Well, you know. I cannot do math. But put a dollar sign in front of it and I can usually figure it out.”

Well, as cute as that is, what he is really saying is that “If there is something in it for me and if I have a personal interest in figuring this out, then I can probably figure it out.”

But what about if it is only in Yahweh’s best interests? Can we still figure out what first means? Or will we start taking things from the middle of the line and start calling them first? Can we no longer figure it out, because it is not for us, but for Yahweh?

Strong’s Hebrew (OT) Concordance:
H1061 בִּכּוּר bikkûr bik-koor’ From H1069; the first fruits of the crop: – first fruit (-ripe [figuratively), hasty fruit.

[We will see the word bikkûr again when Yahweh tells us that the omer first fruits offering must be the bikkurim [plural].

Let us look now at H1061, bikkûr. Again, it means to be the first fruit or the first ripe fruit. Figuratively, the hasty fruit, or the ones that were quickest to get to the finish line. The first ones. It is not a hard concept. How can they not figure it out?

Well, we see this word bikkûr again when Yahweh talks about the definition of the omer first fruits.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 2:14-15
14 “If you offer a grain offering of your firstfruits [bikkurim] to Yahweh, you shall offer for the grain offering of your firstfruits [bikkurim] green heads of grain roasted on the fire [aviv kalui], [or] grain beaten from full heads [geres carmel].
15 And you shall put oil on it, and lay frankincense on it. It is a grain offering.”

Yahweh says that the omer must be bikkurim (plural form). Well, this is exactly the whole problem. Some Karaite and some Messianic groups are teaching not to use the bikkurim, but they are rather talking about taking something else and calling it the bikkurim, when it is not really the bikkurim (not really the first).

We will talk about some of the reasons why the Karaites and Messianic get all these things wrong later in this series, in “The Error of Harvestable Fields”. There are several studies where we discuss these things, there is a whole mess of things they get wrong. It is astonishing the number of things. And we have tried to write them nice letters, in private, to communicate with them. They do not want to hear about it. It is really too bad. Because they are saying that we should not bring the first fruits.

Rather, these Karaite and Messianic groups want the first fruits to literally fall to the ground. And then they say that we are supposed to bring in the main harvest and that we are supposed to take a sheaf from that main harvest, usually a month after the first fruits. And then we should call that random sheaf the first fruits when it is just some random sheaf from the crop. And when you do things that way you end up delaying the calendar by typically about a month, sometimes more depending upon the year. They are waiting for the main harvest to be ripe when Scripture says nothing about doing that. We dissect that in other studies.

Okay, so the first problem is that these Karaite and Messianic groups cannot correctly define what first fruits are. (First meaning the first).

Well, their second problem is that they do not know what green is. Their aviv barley is brown and not green, which violates Scripture. Let us look again at what Leviticus chapter 2 says about the aviv barley.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 2:14-15
14 “If you offer a grain offering of your firstfruits [bikkurim] to Yahweh, you shall offer for the grain offering of your firstfruits [bikkurim] green heads of grain roasted on the fire [aviv kalui], [or] grain beaten from full heads [geres carmel].
15 And you shall put oil on it, and lay frankincense on it. It is a grain offering.”

We are talking about a grain offering. That is exactly what a wave sheaf offering (the omer) is. It is a grain offering of your first fruits. He is saying to offer your bikkurim, offer the ones that burst the womb, offer the firstborn, offer the first fruit. Not only does Yahweh say that the omer must be of the first fruits, But He also wants it to be green heads of grain, so that it can be roasted on the fire (aviv kalui), or grain beaten from full heads (geres carmel). And then it says that you shall put oil on it and lay frankincense on it, it is a grain offering.

Okay, we talked about geres carmel in “Aviv Barley Simplified”, so if you want to know more about geres carmel, please revisit that study. But these are the qualifications that these Karaite and the Messianic barley groups go right past.

We are talking here about green barley. When barley grows and hits maturity but has not dried yet, it is still soft. It is full, it is complete, you can absolutely make food out of it. But first, you must drive the moisture out in order to then be able to grind it and bake cakes out of it. And then, you can lay oil and then frankincense on it, which is also included as part of the commandment.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 2:14-15
14 “If you offer a grain offering of your firstfruits [bikkurim] to Yahweh, you shall offer for the grain offering of your firstfruits [bikkurim] green heads of grain roasted on the fire [aviv kalui], [or] grain beaten from full heads [geres carmel].
15 And you shall put oil on it, and lay frankincense on it. It is a grain offering.”

The image above (by Messianic sister Becca Biderman) shows a green head of grain in the medium dough stage. This is what we call aviv barley. It has a full starch content, and the head is full. It has just finished maturing but at this point, it is still wet. So, in order to turn it into cakes, you are going to have to drive that moisture out, by parching it (or roasting it in fire). And once you parch it, you can grind it into flour, bake it into cakes, and then put oil and frankincense on it.

Now, for those who do not know a lot about barley, here are some things to note. Unlike a tree, barley has a different reproduction strategy. Generally, a tree has a hard seed inside of a fruit. It actually wants the animals to eat the fruit so that the seed is carried away farther and wider. And then the animal will deposit the seed (with a bundle of fertilizer) in another location. A barley plant is different because it does not want its seed to get eaten. The barley is still green while it is still growing and maturing its seed. The barley wants to spring up and bear seed. And then, as soon as it is done maturing its seed, the plant wants to die quickly, so that its seed can fall into the ground (before it gets eaten). Because a barley seed is a soft seed. If it gets eaten, it gets destroyed. So, the barley plant wants to bear fruit quickly and then die, so that the seed falls to the ground. As soon as the barley starts to die, its seed is already ripe, and the plant wants to drop its seed.

As you can see in this field (image by Messianic sister Becca Biderman) most of the barley is green. But we see here a patch that is starting to turn yellow. From this point forward the barley plant is starting to die. The seed is only to get harder, and the plant is going to continue to quickly turn yellow. And within about a week or two weeks at the most, that seed is going to start to drop to the ground.

The barley plant begins to die at this stage. And basically, if we are willing to accept it, this represents Yeshua in His prime (about 33 years of age) before He was cut off. We can see the reference there.

Let us take another look at Strong’s Concordance for the definition of aviv (or abib).

Strong’s Hebrew (OT) Concordance
H24 אָבִיב ‘âbı̂yb, aw-beeb’ From an unused root (meaning to be tender); green, that is a young ear of grain; hence the name of the month Abib or Nisan: – Abib, ear, green ears of corn.

We need a barley plant that has just barely matured. It is tender, green, and fully mature.

As we can see in the image, the kernel is fully matured; it is just not hardened yet. It is a young grain, it is tender, it is mature, and it is still wet. You can parch it in fire and then you can grind it to flour to make cakes, and then put oil and frankincense on it. That is what it says in Strong’s definition as well.

Okay, how are we going to help people understand this? Well, the following is an image of barley found online, by an unknown artist. But this is a picture of barley that is just becoming aviv.

We see how the stalks are still green, but the heads are just now starting to turn a golden color. The barley seed is full, now the plant can die. And it wants to die quickly in order to drop the seed to the ground. So, green is good for aviv barley.

Well, if green is good for aviv barley, what about brown? Brown is bad for aviv barley. When barley is already brown, it is no longer tender, young, and green. Sorry to put it this way. I know that is really hard for some people to grasp. But green is good, brown is bad.

When barley is brown it is no longer green. When barley is hard it is no longer tender, such as in this image by Bryan Convery of Abib of God barley search.

Green is good. Brown is bad.

Again, below is a picture of good aviv barley.

And then, below, another internet image (from an unknown artist) of what is not aviv barley. Notice how it is brown.

If your barley is this brown, it is no longer tender, young, and green.

What is happening is that a lot of the Karaites and the Messianic are incorrectly defining aviv barley as barley that is almost modern-day combine ripe. It is way too hard, way too brittle, and way too fragile to harvest with an ancient hand sickle. We talk about that in our other studies. So, not only are they picking barley that is not the first fruit, but they are also picking barley that is no longer tender, green, and young.

We have seen that, according to both Leviticus chapter two, verses 14 and 15, and Strong’s Concordance, the definition of aviv barley is to be full, but tender, green, and young. (And not brown). Aviv barley still must be wet because you must drive the moisture out of it by parching it. If it is already brown, then there is no need for driving the moisture out. So hard brown barley does not qualify.

Again, Strong’s Hebrew concordance bikkûr means the first fruits of the crop. It is the first fruit. Not the middle of the sheaf, not the second, not the third. It is the one that bursts the womb.

Strong’s Hebrew (OT) Concordance:
H1061 בִּכּוּר bikkûr bik-koor’ From H1069; the first fruits of the crop: – first fruit (-ripe [figuratively), hasty fruit.

And this is symbolic of Yeshua, the very first one.

Qorintim Aleph (1 Corinthians) 15:20-23
20 But now Messiah is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Messiah all shall be made alive.
23 But each one in his own order: [first] Messiah the firstfruits, [and then] afterward those who are Messiah’s at His coming.

Why the Messianic miss this, I cannot understand.

We are going to see a pattern here. We are going to see that this is so important. First, you bring the omer offering, then you can bring in the harvest. Because first, you bring the omer to Yahweh so that Yahweh will bless and set apart your harvest. And once Yahweh has blessed and set your harvest, then you can harvest it. Not the other way around. You do not harvest your harvest and then bring Yahweh any old offering (like Qayin). That is not how you do it, that is not what He wants.

I do not know whether you have ever grown a garden. But think about if you were to grow your own tomatoes. And you till the soil, you plant the seed, you fertilize and water it. You weed it and you keep the slugs away. And you take care of it, and you watch the plant grow every day. And it is growing up, and it is getting all this delicious, good red fruit. You just really want to eat it, but oh, that one belongs to Yahweh.

Now, especially in a famine year, does not that show trust of Yahweh? Does not that show Yahweh that we trust Him? Even still, in a famine year, we want to bring the first of the barley and not wait a month. Because if you are going to wait an extra month in a famine year to get to the middle of the harvest then somebody is not going to be able to eat for a month. We talk about those errors in a lot of other chapters in this series.

So, the true pattern is that we first bring Yahweh the omer so He can bless the harvest and set it apart. Then we can bring in the harvest. First-century historian Josephus is a witness that this is how it was done in the first century. We talk about his witness more in “Josephus, the Talmud, and the Omer”, later in this book. But we know that this is the pattern because, first Yeshua was risen from the dead, and then afterward came Yeshua’s resurrection, and then others can be resurrected from the dead. That is the true pattern.

What is the false pattern? The orthodox and the Karaites have what might be called an anti-Yeshua pattern. And why so many Messianic are following this pattern I do not understand.

The anti-Messiah pattern is that you first bring in the harvest and then you bring a sheaf from that harvest. We are going to see that is symbolic of the anti-Messiah. Because first brother Judah came back to the land of Israel in 1948, symbolic of the harvest. Now Judah is waiting for his anti-Messiah (the sheaf from the harvest). Because the wave sheaf is symbolic of Messiah. So, is it symbolic of Yeshua because we are bringing the wave sheaf first? Or is it symbolic of the anti-Messiah because we are bringing in the harvest first?

Whether you are Messianic, Ephraimite, if you are a Hebrew Roots believer, or if you believe in the two-houses, or maybe you even think of yourself as a Nazarene, listen. First, we bring the offering, then we receive His blessing, then we bring in the harvest. That is the way we do it. Okay. I understand that the Karaites do not understand that because they are locked onto the anti-Yeshua model. The Karaites did not accept Yeshua in the first century. They do not accept Yeshua today. But why the Messianic do not understand this model, I do not understand.

It is really time for prayer. If you are a Messianic, Ephraimite, Hebrew Roots believer, or whatever you want to call yourself, we need to do things the way they were done in the first century. Not the way the rabbis do them today. Not the way the Karaite say to do them today. We need to take care to do things the way they were done in the first century. As we show in our other studies, first you bring the omer, then you bring in the harvest.

To summarize, there are three main errors in the Karaites and Messianic calendars. The first one is that, on average, they are declaring Rosh HaShanah a little over a month too late. And that is because they do not bring the true first fruits, they bring what you might call mid-fruits or false fruits (anti-fruits).

The second thing is that their definition of aviv barley is barley that it is already brown and hard, rather than green and tender. And this delays their estimate of when the date is by plus or minus a week.

Above is an image by Devorah’s Date Tree from their 2021 barley inspection. The year when they even boasted that, the way they knew it was time to bring in the harvest was because the true first fruits had already fallen on the ground. If you are following the Karaite or the Messianic model, then you are following the anti-Messiah model. Because you are first bringing in the harvest without the blessing. You are first bringing in the harvest before it has been set apart. That is the anti-Messiah model.

Why the Messianic cannot understand that I do not understand. Because Yeshua specifically warns us in Matthew chapter 16, verse 6 about the doctrine of the Pharisees (orthodox) and the Sadducees (Karaite).

Mattityahu (Matthew) 16:6
6 Then Yeshua said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees [rabbis] and the Sadducees [Karaites].”

Yeshua also said the following in Luke, chapter six, verse 46.

Luqa (Luke) 6:46
46 “But why do you call Me ‘Adon, Adon,’
and not do the things which I say?

If we want to be there at the wedding feast, and if we want Him to take us as the bride, do not we need to show up for the dates at the time that He sets. And do not we need to bring the correct offerings of green barley and not brown, the way He says to do it? And do not we need to first bring Him the omer offering so that we can receive permission to cut the harvest?

Yeshua further warns in Matthew 16, verses 11-12.

Mattityahu (Matthew) 16:11-12
11 “How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread?—but to beware of the leaven [false doctrine] of the Pharisees [rabbis] and Sadducees [Karaites].”
12 Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the [false] doctrine of the Pharisees [rabbis] and Sadducees [Karaites].

Well, I think that a lot of people have this habit of what we call drinking from every fountain or gleaning from every source. And the idea is that they have the Spirit and so they are going to listen to a whole lot of different sources. They will listen to this teacher, that teacher, the next teacher, and then some other teacher. But the problem is that, obviously, not everyone hears in the Spirit, or perhaps they are quenching the Spirit or whatever the reality is. But the simple fact is that there are a lot of people who are not taking care of what lessons they are taking in.

If we just eat any old kind of food and we take poison into our bodies, whether we eat it or drink it in, we are going to have bad health. And there are a lot of people who think they can glean between healthy and unhealthy spiritual food, and they cannot. They think they take care with the spiritual food they are consuming, but they do not. As a result, they have bad spiritual health.

The problem is this, brothers and sisters. You can really miss the wedding feast by not doing what Yeshua says to do. I am not saying that people are intentionally doing anything wrong. I am not saying that people are consciously aware of trying to do the wrong thing. What I am saying is that some people are not paying attention to the Spirit and some people are not taking care with the calendars they keep. And when you run across a person like that, that is someone not to listen to.

Yeshua said take heed and beware of the leaven. That is a consumable. Take heed and beware of what you consume. Because you are what you eat. And if you consume poison you are going to get sick.

These are the things to think about when we are determining which first fruits offering, we are going to bring. Are we going to bring Yahweh the true first fruits that He asks for? Are we going to bring Him false fruits that plays into the anti-Messiah’s calendar?

He who has ears, let him hear.