Now in the last several lessons we have been talking about Christ and the firstfruits, as He was the first to be resurrected, and also those that came out of the graves after His resurrection in Matthew 27. And then we looked quite in-depth at the resurrection of the Body of Christ, the Church Age believers. How they will be separated from the rest of the believers, and we still have one group left that we didn't squeeze into our last four lessons, and that would be the resurrection of the Old Testament believers. The best place to pick that up will be back in the Book of Daniel. Before we go to Daniel let's read again this verse in I Corinthians 15 that we've been using as a jumping off place for the resurrection of the believers of all the ages.
I Corinthians 15:23
"But every man (that is every believer) in his own order: (or his own group or company, and here's it's reviewed again) Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming."
Now here again the Scripture does not enumerate right here for us, but instead sends us back to other references to dig out where the various groups of believers come into play when it comes to resurrection. In our last lesson we looked at how Paul lays it out in the latter part of I Corinthians Chapter 15, and then going on into I and II Thessalonians how that the Church Age believers will be caught up to meet The Lord in the air. However, we did not have time to pick up the Old Testament believer, so in this lesson we're going to go all the way back to Daniel Chapter 12. Now in other remarks that I've made concerning the resurrection, the Old Testament certainly alludes to it, and the Old Testament saints certainly were believers in a resurrection, but there's nothing said about it in the Old Testament to build any real knowledge concerning it. Daniel Chapter 12 probably says the most of anything, although we've looked at Job's reference to the resurrection life, and we certainly know that David expected to be resurrected, but Daniel Chapter 12 lays it out as clearly as any place, and we might as well start at verse 1.
Daniel 12:1
"And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: (the Nation of Israel) and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: (that's a reference to the Tribulation) and at that time thy people (the Nation of Israel) shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book."
