If you have your Bible this afternoon, let me invite you to turn to the book of 1 Thessalonians, Paul's first epistle to the church at Thessalonica. And we're going to be looking at 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 13 through 18, as we're approaching the question, what happens at Christ's coming? What happens at Christ's coming? And I'm going to read from 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 13 through 18. Let me invite you, as you're able, let's stand in honor of the reading and hearing of God's word. 1 Thessalonians 4, beginning in verse 13, wherein the apostle Paul writes, but I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words." May God bless again today the reading and the hearing of his word, and let us join in prayer. Gracious and loving God, as we once again stand before the authority and under the authority of thy word, we ask that you would give us the means to understand and to discern, and that especially as we approach questions about life and death and the second coming of Christ, that you would give us insight into the truths that are taught here, that we would embrace them and we would uphold them. We ask this in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen. And you may be seated. So we are continuing today this series we've started on Sunday afternoons on eschatology. And if you aren't familiar with that term, that theological term, eschatology comes from the Greek word eschatos, which means last, and the word logos, which means word or doctrine, and so eschatology is the doctrine of last things, the doctrine of last things. And we've noted there are two aspects to the topic of eschatology. First, there is personal eschatology. And this is the question of, what happens when I die? Is there life after death? And what about judgment for those who reject Christ? the heavenly rest for those who believe in Christ. What about my spirit? What about my body? That's personal eschatology. And then there's also cosmic eschatology. And this is the question of, what happens at the end of the ages? What does the Bible teach happens at the end of history, at the coming of Christ? And there are places where these two aspects of eschatology overlap. And so we ask questions about what happens when we die, what happens to our bodies, and we're asking questions about what happens when the Lord returns at the final resurrection. So there are places where these two aspects of eschatology do overlap. Today, though, we're continuing to put most of our focus at present on personal eschatology. And we've talked a little bit already about in the previous messages in this series about what happens to believers at death. And we've noted that the Christian, the biblical view of humanity or anthropology is that we are made up of two parts as human beings. We have souls and we have bodies. And that when we die, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5.8, being absent from the body, we are present with the Lord. So the souls of believers go immediately to be with the Lord, while, as the Baptist catechism teaches, based on scriptural proofs, their bodies remain in the grave, being still united to Christ until the resurrection, until Christ returns. And then those who are in the grave, as we saw last time in John 5, 28 and 29, hear the voice of the Son of Man And they come forth to experience what Christ called the resurrection of life. What happens to unbelievers at death? They too are made up of body and soul. The Bible teaches that at their death, their souls enter into unspeakable torments. While their bodies, not united to Christ, remain in the grave awaiting the resurrection at Christ's return. And those persons, too, will, in the grave, hear the voice of the Son of Man, as Christ taught in John 5, 28 and 29. But they will not experience the resurrection of life. Instead, they will experience the resurrection of damnation, as Christ calls it. And we saw this, didn't we, when we looked at Luke 16, the account of the rich man and Lazarus, how that the rich man was immediately ushered into a place of torment while his soul was, while his body was buried. Our passage today addresses the question of what happens at the second coming of Christ. The second coming of Christ is, of course, a basic teaching of what we would call orthodox faith. We believe that Christ will come again. He will come again visibly, physically, at the end of the ages. Christ himself taught this on the Mount of Olives in Matthew 24. He was teaching the disciples about last things. And he prophesied unto them in verse 30 of Matthew 24, saying, they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and glory. And when Christ was raised from the dead and he appeared for 40 days to his disciples, We're told in Acts chapter one that when those 40 days were complete, he ascended and we're told how he went up in a cloud. And as he ascended, after he had ascended, there were angels there who spoke to the men who were still looking up. And those angels said to them in Acts 1 verse 11, this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven. And so, this was the witness of the angels. In Titus 2, verse 13, Paul described believers as looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. And in 1 Corinthians 16, verse 22, Paul repeats one of the early prayers of believers in the Aramaic language. And that prayer was Maranatha, which means in Aramaic, come, Lord Jesus. Beyond the scriptures, among the early Christians, when they gathered together a confession of faith, one of the earliest was the Apostles' Creed. And in the Apostles' Creed, it notes that Christ, after his resurrection, ascended And then he entered into what we call his session. He was seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. And then it adds in the Apostles' Creed, from thence he shall come to judge the quick, meaning the living and the dead. And later in the Apostles' Creed, it also affirms belief in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. So the second coming of Christ is a biblical teaching. It's Christ's teaching. It's the apostles' teaching. It's the angels' teaching. It's the apostles' creed's teaching. And with that in mind, then, we come to this text, which is a key text, teaching about the second coming of Christ and also about the destiny of believers, those who die in the Lord before Christ's coming. In fact, when Paul wrote this letter, he was not sitting down, I think, to write a theological treatise on eschatology. He did not sit down to write a complicated Paul's Institute to the Christian Religion, as Calvin would. This was a letter to a church. It was a pastoral letter. He was addressing concerns that he'd heard about within this church. And apparently, there were some believers in this church who were anxious or worried or distressed about the question of what happened to their fellow believers who had died before Christ's second coming. Many thought that the return of Christ would be imminent. They thought it would happen within their lifetimes. They weren't aware at that time that that actually it would be many years before the coming of Christ. And we still don't know when the coming of Christ will be. In fact, Christ said that no man knows that day or that hour. And we also know that time with God is something different than the experience of human beings who are in time. In Psalm 90, verse 4, it says that With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. So there were people who were believers. They believed in Christ. They believed that Christ would return in glory. They believed in the final resurrection. But they had friends who were Christians who died. Imagine maybe you were a Christian. Maybe your mother or your father were a Christian, and they passed away, and you began to have some anxious thoughts. They're already gone. Christ has not yet returned. What will happen to them? What will be their destiny? Or maybe it could have been a beloved pastor in the church, or a deacon, or it could have been a friend, or a neighbor. Could have been a child that died who was a believing child. What's the destiny of my dear one who has died before the coming Christ? Will they miss out on the benefits that come to believers at his coming and in the final resurrection. So that's the context. It's a pastoral context for Paul addressing this. And we see this in verse 13, as he says, but I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. And so we see here that he's writing to address these believers. He does not want them to be ignorant of what will happen at Christ's coming or ignorant of the destiny of their friends who were Christians who died before the second coming of Christ. And he doesn't want them to grieve for these people as those who have no hope. Now, he didn't want to say that it's futile to grieve. It's godly to grieve. Christ, when he lost his friend Lazarus to death, it says Jesus wept. But he didn't want them to grieve as those who had no hope for these friends who had died. In verse 14, he continues noting their belief in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, but also that at his return, he would bring with them Those who sleep, and sleep is used as a metaphor here for death, those who have died, who were in the faith. And so look at verse 14. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and the sense is, of course, we believe this. Christ died and he rose. It's essential to the Christian faith. It's a core element of the gospel that Christ died and rose again. Even so, them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. And so here, he's drawing on the whole counsel of God. What happens to believers at their death? 2 Corinthians 5.8, to be absent of the body is to be present with the Lord. The spirits of believers are at their death with the Lord. But now, Paul is saying, according to verse 14, that they are with God and they will be brought with Christ when he returns. The souls of believers who are immediately with the Lord will be brought with him when he returns in glory. And again, some in the church at Thessalonica had apparently been discussing issues related to this. They were wondering not only what would happen to those who had died before Christ's coming, but I think they were also wondering, what happens if you're alive at Christ's coming? What happens to you? You're alive. Christ returns. What is your destiny? And so he addresses this in verse 15. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. There are several statements here, words and terms that need to be spelled out. One is that here Paul talks about speaking on the authority of the word of the Lord. He's an apostle. He was chosen by Christ himself to be an apostle. And so what he's saying with authority is, I'm teaching you something that Christ has taught us and Christ has taught me. And he's also talking here about the second coming. And it actually uses the word coming. And he's talking about the destiny of those who are alive. We which are alive and remain unto the coming. When you see that word in this context, behind it is a Greek word. And this would be a good biblical term to sort of put in your Greek word bank. Many Christians know agape means love. Maranatha means come Lord Jesus. Ekklesia means church. And we have a kind of a bank of words. And we can add another one if you don't already know and it's parousia. We would transliterate it P-A-R-O-U-S-I-A. Parousia. And it's the word coming. And it was used to mean like the coming of a king or an official on a visit or something like that. And Christians took that term, and they made it a term to refer to the second coming of Christ, Christ's return. And so I have a teaching from the Lord that I've received as an apostle as to what will happen to those who are alive at the coming of the Lord. And this is what he, the information, the word that he has. They shall not prevent. That's the word in the authorized version. Here it does not mean to hinder, but it's meant in an older way, coming from the Latin prevenio, to go before. They will not precede. They will not go before them. which are asleep. In other words, when Christ returns, he brings with him the souls of the righteous saints. And they experience the resurrection first. And then afterwards, those saints, those believers who are alive at Christ's coming, also experience the resurrection and the comfort to these brothers and sisters at Thessalonica is that believing pastor, deacon, parent, child does not miss out on the resurrection. In fact, they experience it first when their righteous souls accompany Christ at his coming. Paul then describes the descent or the second coming of Christ at the beginning of verse 16. For if the Lord, or the Lord rather, himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. This indicates to us that the descent or the second coming of Christ will be something that will be universal. It will be a visible event with accompanying signs. Three are mentioned here. with a shout. And I mentioned last week, I think this is comparable to what Christ mentioned in John 5, verse 28, when he talked about those in the grave hearing his voice. And then he also mentioned, secondly, another voice, but this isn't the voice of Christ, it's the voice of the archangel. And then finally, the trump of God. And we also cited last week from 1 Corinthians 15, verse 52, which describes the last trump at Christ's coming. And then Paul adds at the end of verse 16, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Again, the godly believers who have died before Christ's second coming, whose souls are with Christ at His coming, they will experience the resurrection first. Blessed Saints have not missed out on the benefits of Christ's resurrection. In fact, they will experience it before those who are alive at His coming. And indeed, this would have been great comfort to any who were worried about that. At the beginning of verse 17, Paul describes the experience of those who are living at Christ's return. Look at verse 17. Then we, Now, he uses we. This doesn't mean that Paul expected that he himself would be alive at Christ's coming. In fact, he would die before Christ's coming. But basically, those, those of us, we believers, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. This means that when Christ comes, with the resurrected saints who died before Christ's coming, they will experience the resurrection first, and then those who are alive will be caught up with them to meet Christ in the air. Now, this term caught up has caused confusion over the years. In the old Latin Vulgate translation, this term caught up was translated with the verb rapio. This passage was taken over by some in recent years who teach a doctrine called the rapture. And if you're familiar with the whole series of books that came out some years ago, and I think there were films connected with them, Tim LaHaye, the left behind books, sort of dramatized and fictionalized this idea of believers being caught up in a rapture, and this teaching was also propagated in an error-filled system called dispensationalism. And this teaching taught that there would be a secret coming of Christ, and there would be a secret rapture of the saints, and they would be taken out of the, from the earth And then they taught there would be a seven-year period of tribulation on the earth that would end with a glorious and public coming of Christ. And so it was sometimes called a, there was a pre-tribulation rapture, and then there was a post-tribulation coming of Christ. That elaborate scheme does not fit with the plainness of what is taught here. Paul did not teach that this coming of Christ was going to be secret. He will come with a shout. He will come with the voice of the archangel. He will come with the trump. There is no secret first coming and then later a public coming. There is one coming of Christ. There is one parousia. And Paul teaches here, at Christ's coming, there will be a glorious resurrection. And it will affect all men. It will affect, first of all, those saints who have died in the Lord. And then it will affect those saints who are alive at his coming. Now what isn't addressed by Paul here, because he's writing to a Christian audience, he's talking about their experience, he doesn't address the resurrection of the wicked. But Christ addressed that, remember, in John 5, 28 and 29. They will experience the resurrection of the damnation. But here he's talking to a Christian audience and He's assuring them that those who die of the Lord and those who are faithful believers who remain at the time of Christ, they will experience the resurrection unto life. They will be caught up with Him in the air, and what will they do there? Look at the end of verse 17. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. This is the end of the ages. There's nothing else after this. Christ comes. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 28, at that time, God will be all in all. And so here Paul says, so shall we ever be with the Lord. And then he concludes this practical pastoral care teaching to the church by saying to them, wherefore, comfort one another with these words. Comfort one another with these words. I'm doing a funeral tomorrow. I may well read these words so that it'll be a comfort to those who have lost a believing brother and will be a comfort to those who are yet alive who have yet to experience perhaps death or eventually the coming of Christ. And so these words have been indeed a comfort to believers over many generations. These words have been a comfort to believers when they go to the sickbed. And these words have been a comfort to believers when they go to the deathbed. And these words have been a comfort to believers when they go to the graveside. This teaching has stoked the resolve of generations of saints who have served the Lord in difficult situations, knowing that they dare not trust the rewards of this life over the rewards of the life to come. As Paul would write in Philippians 121, for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. And it has comforted those who have lost loved ones, because it tells us that we can know that one day there will be many glorious reunions. As the former Free Church of England Bishop DA Thompson put it, So the first great joy of heaven is to be with Christ and to see and to be like him. And then, Thompson continued, to be reunited with loved ones gone before. May the Lord be praised as we consider such things too wonderful now for us fully to comprehend. Amen. Let me invite you to stand together. Let's join in prayer. Gracious and loving God, we do give thee thanks for the glorious resurrection of Christ, the promise of his second coming after his ascension and his session, and that we have nothing to fear as believers in death If we die before Christ returns, our spirits will be with thee. And if we are alive at thy coming, we shall be caught up in the air, and thou shalt be all in all, and we shall be with thee forever. And so we give thee thanks for the comfort of the scriptures, that we don't live just for this life, although this life is is filled with many joys and many blessings. But we look for the life that is to come. And as believers, we look to the resurrection of life. And so we give thee thanks for thy tender care, thy provision for thy saints. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.