1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. I talked a little bit in our opening about the themes and ideas that are coming up in our readings for the church here. We are heading towards the end of the Church year. And those readings always point us to the end of time, the return of Jesus Christ. And we saw them in the readings that we see today. The prophet Amos talks about the judgment coming on the day of the Lord, though on that day, he was pointing to the danger of the Assyrians coming into Israel, a judgment and not a gift from God. And Jesus points us also to the return of well of Jesus, when He comes like a groom to a wedding. Not at the time you expect. The question is, what's going to happen on that day? What will it be like, on the day that Jesus returned? And that's the question we're going to explore through the reading that I did from First Thessalonians. Now, this question is rather controversial, because there are two main theories about what will happen on that day. I'm gonna give you a big theological word today, maybe you've heard it, maybe you haven't. Actually, it's It's hard enough that I screwed it up in the first service. Hopefully, I'll get it right this time. It is free millennial dispensationalism. Say that, again, re millennial dispensationalism. Now you can go out knowing that you've got your theological education for the day. Now, this idea is idea about the end of the world and what will happen when Jesus returns. The other competing theory is much easier. It's a millennialism. Free dispensational millennialism teaches that God has worked throughout time in history in different dispensations, different ways of working through his promises. And it teaches that God's promises in the Old Testament to Israel are now still active on the nation of Israel, and the Jews today. This is the claim I dealt with back in August when he talked about how St. Paul says that all of the promises of God come through to Jesus, and that everyone who is in Christ is through Israel. And then everything that God promised to in the Old Testament comes through and today, we're going to deal with a passage that Freeman millennial dispensationalists use to refer to the Rapture. What that's what they say is, when the end times come, Jesus will secretly return and take all Christians, and all the dead, and they will all in Christ and they will disappear. Then, seven years of Tribulation will happen. After that, Jesus will return again and establish an earthly government for the millennium, 1000 years. Then at the end of the 1000 years, a rebellion will happen. It will be defeated. And eternity, we'll call a millennium teaches. We are currently in the tribulation. The 1000 years of Revelation are happening now. Where Jesus rules on earth through his church, and he will come back visibly on the last day and raise everyone from the dead and we will live eternally with him all who believed in Trump. The passage we looked at from First Thessalonians chapter four is the proof tax for the idea of the rapture. That is, the Jesus will appear secretly take all living Christians and all dead Christians and leave the rest of the earth for the seven years of the tribulation. to point that out, They look at what we read, they save. For this, we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive are left until the coming of the Lord, we will not proceed those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, under the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. They focus on the idea that Christians will be caught up with price and be with him. You may have been a seen this, I sometimes do that when we're driving along, and you'll see a bumper sticker that says, in case of Rapture, this car will be unmanned. That's what they're talking about. The Jesus will secretly return and snap, people will be gone, airplanes will crash. Cars will swerve, everything will be missed. They also say that this tribulation begins. And the reason why Christians aren't here for that is because we are not part of this great tribulation, God is going to pull us away. There's another passage they point to this is Matthew chapter 24, where Jesus says this. But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Whereas in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark. And they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away. So it will be at the coming of the Son of men, then two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one lap. Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay away. For you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. Here they focus on the idea that one person will be taken up to heaven and one lap. They also talk about this happening right before this great tribulation, sometimes at rest of Revelation talks about because they believe that Christians will be spared the wrath of God. One of the ways they do that is by pointing to First Thessalonians chapter five, as it says, For God is not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. In doing this, I also looked up some of the things that David Jeremiah says at Shadow Mountain. And he mentioned that Christians can't be a part of this great tribulation, because of what it says in Romans chapter eight. There is now no condemnation through Jesus Christ. And if Christians have no condemnation, it means that we can't be part of this wrath, or this tribulation. I've done my best to represent this as best as I can. But I think the rapture is mistaken. This is not what will happen on the day that Jesus returned. And we can do that by looking at exactly the passages that they use to support this verse. Let's take a look at Matthew chapter 24. It says, whereas in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark. They were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away. So it will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill one will be taken and one last year the image is of Noah and the flood. And Noah was saying he was the one who was left the flood swept people away in judgment. So if Jesus is consistent using his this imagery, the people who remain are the one who are saved The people who are taken away are swept away in judgment,
like the flow, which means this image is actually opposite of what the people in the rafters said. You can also look at our passes for the day. First Thessalonians chapter four, where it says, For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Now, this is pretty impressive, right? It says that Jesus will come from heaven, with the cry of an archangel, and the sound of the trumpet of God. That doesn't sound like a secret to me, does it? Of course not. That's a trumpet. That is the cry of command the voice of an archangel, it's going to be pretty clear what happens on that day. Jesus himself says that we will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds with power and might. No one's going to miss. It's not going to be a secret. There is no wondering whether you will be ready for the wrath of God, Jesus will descend from heaven. On the last day, there will be no secrets, there will be it will not be hidden, it will be clear. And he gives us this promise, so that we can know he is coming. Coming to rescue is coming to save us to give us life that lasts forever by his own death and resurrection. And his voice will cry out and call us up from our graves and give us perfect bodies, and we will go to meet him in the air while his judgment comes down. And then we will live forever with Him. One thing I haven't dealt with is that tribulation. They say Christians cannot be a part of this great tribulation, because we do not receive this wrath. He say because there is no condemnation. That's misunderstanding what's going on. Jesus himself says that we are part of a tribulation. He says in John, In this world, you will have trouble will take heart, I have overcome the world. That's the same Greek word as the Great Tribulation. The John himself writes in Rebbi revelation. So we know now the tribulation has been going on. Since the day Jesus ascended into heaven. The church has always been suffering. The church has always been persecuted. St. Paul gives us these words, so that we can look forward to the day when he comes to power and might and clearly reveals Himself to us, and gives us eternal life. Up until now, this has been a pretty doctrinal sermon. I'm giving you Bible passages and analyzing them and you know, all of this stuff. And you may be asking yourself, well, so what Pastor? Why is this actually important for me now? I mean, we're all find out eventually, anyway, either he's gonna come and rapture us or he's just gonna come and show up and raise the dead. And it'll be just like you said, there's a good reason why we need to know this. First, and the people who teach about the Rapture end up focusing too much on the news of the day. They stress each other out about the signs and the seasons and everything that is going on, especially when we have things going on in Israel. Every time there's war or violence or battle, everybody in dispensationalism thinks knows the end, he gotta get worried. And they point us to think about things that are so far away that we can't do anything about and all we do is dress up. And that is not why St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians. He says, I want you not to grieve like those who have no hope. The point here is just to come I'm not to point us to this world and say, watch the news. Think about the signs come up with charts that show us exactly where in the rapture timeline we are. They do. There's even a website that has a rapture countdown clock, as if they can figure out when this might happen. What Jesus gives us is something very simple. He promises to return, and he'll raise you from the dead. That's easily appoints us comfort that points us piece that we're not stressing out, we're trusting in Him. The other thing that this teaching about the Rapture does is it points us away from our duties now. So think about those things that are far away. Because the Jesus really wants us to think about our neighbors, and our families, the people around us, the things that we can control. When he says Love your neighbor as yourself, he isn't thinking about or worrying about things that are half a world away. He wants us to simply do our job serving others. So the Rapture points us to thinking and worrying and feeling about things that we have no control. Over, that don't matter to us. What God really wants us to do, to serve the people who are nearer love the people who are in you. To be the people God created us to be around. And when we think about something that is that far away, and we're always worrying about what's happening in the news. It means we turn our attention away from the people God has sent us to law. This passage from First Thessalonians is there to guide us into a hopeful expectation of the day that Jesus returns and raises us from the dead. It's not here to make us worry about some secret rapture in a complicated system about the end. It's just there to give us hope. In Jesus name, Amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai