The Rapture!

Well, let's take our Bibles and let's turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 as we continue to see what God has said to us in this book. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, you follow as I begin reading in verse 13. 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 God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus.

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 him 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. Let's pray. Father, we come to you now and ask that you would work in our hearts to help us to understand the comfort that we have in the resurrection and the triumph of the Lord Jesus. Father, we pray that even as we look at this and seek to understand it, we would not use this merely as a means of satisfying our curiosity, but truly would find hope.

As you intended, we find hope in these words. Now, God, direct our thinking, we pray. Help us so that we can be equipped to serve one another. Thank you right now for your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

We going to talk about the rapture this morning I know what some of you are thinking You thinking are you kidding I have been waiting for years for this sermon right In fact, some of you are thinking right now, besides pastor, I thought you didn't believe in anything called the rapture. I'm sure some of you are thinking that already. Well, I have to talk about it because the text before us talks about it.

It's exactly what it's talking about. But the one thing that we have to understand immediately is that Paul does not talk about the rapture in order to satisfy the curiosity of his friends in Thessalonica. As he talks about Jesus' return, he does not launch into some long discussion about the end times. Rather, he sees this talk about the return of Jesus, this talk about the rapture, as an essential element of pastoral ministry.

These dear friends are hurting. They're overtaken in sorrow. And so he speaks of the future in order to help them not to satisfy their curiosity. That's what this is about. As we look at this text, it's about what we're supposed to do with it. What's God's intention?

His intention is that we use these words, what? To encourage one another. Now we saw last week as we began that those dear friends of his at Thessalonica were losing hope. They were losing hope. They were grieving in ways that were not honoring to God. And Paul is saying, don't grieve like unbelievers who have no hope.

And so he seeks to give them hope. And we saw last week that you can have hope because you share in Jesus' resurrection. Now recall that some of the Thessalonians most likely had died in the persecution. They were facing persecution and death. And they were wondering about their friends who had died as they stood for the faith. And like us, they lived in a culture that offered no hope in the face of death.

The common belief that surrounded them in their day did believe in an existence after death. It was not uncommon. Greek philosophy always talked about the soul and that it would have this existence beyond death but it was an immaterial existence in a shadowy underworld in some dark realm that how it was thought And they might have thought we know that when Jesus returns he gathers his people That is those who are alive But what about those people who they were believing are in this underworld, this shadowy, dark realm?

What happens to them? Again, remember, our culture tends to shape our thinking. And even though Paul may have talked to them about these things, the culture still shapes their thinking. And we struggle with hope in our own culture because we live in a naturalistic culture that tells us that when death comes, existence ends. There's nothing more. Death ends all existence.

We live in cultures. They did, we do, cultures that have no basis for hope, cultures that rob us of hope. And he's saying to them, there's real hope, verses 13 and 14. He assures them that all those who are united to Jesus in their death are united to him in his resurrection and will be raised again to live forever. All right? And so we can have hope because we are united to Jesus.

And because we're united to Jesus, we share in the same resurrection that he had. And so there's coming a day of resurrection. You can have hope because you will share in Jesus' resurrection if you belong to him. That's verses 13 and 14. Then he goes on to say, you can have hope because you will share in Jesus' triumph. Verses 15 through 18.

So let's look again very quickly at those words beginning in verse 15. Verses 13 and 14. You're united to Christ. You'll be united in his resurrection. There's coming a day you can have hope because you'll be raised from the dead. Those friends that you've lost will one day come out of the grave, is what he says.

Now he goes on to say, 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 you can have hope because you will share in Jesus triumph if you belong to Jesus you will share in his triumph now notice he's certain of that triumph because he says it comes with Jesus authority I'm telling you this by a word of the Lord Now, what is he talking about there?

I believe he's talking about the fact that Jesus has already addressed this issue. And what he says flows out of what Jesus has said. When did Jesus talk about these things? Well, when you turn back to Matthew 24, you see that Jesus does talk about these. And I believe the Apostle Paul is drawing on this. In fact, as we look at Matthew 24, what we see in chapter 4, verse 13, all the way down through chapter 5, verse 11, all have echoes if not directly talking about the things that Jesus does.

Turn over to Matthew 24. We'll just read a part of this. This is a long section where Jesus talks about the signs of the end of the age and what the church is going to go through and all the things like that. Just pick it up in verse 29. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other. You can hear the echoes already, can't you? We just read 1 Thessalonians, drop down now to verse 36.

But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying, 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 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 left therefore stay awake for you do not know on what day your lord is coming all right there jesus has talked about his coming in triumph and so paul says authority of what Jesus is saying, I'm saying you're going to have a share in that very same glory that he talked about. Now let's talk, let's look at what the Apostle Paul writes to us here in 1 Thessalonians 4. He says you can have hope because Jesus will triumph.

Jesus will triumph. And what he describes here is something I think that we need to understand, if we're going to understand the hope that is ours. all right we need to have a right understanding of what he's saying now this passage declares even shouts about a public triumph of jesus verses 15 and 16 for this we declare to you by word from the lord that we who are alive who are left until the coming of the lord will not precede those who fall 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. This shouts about a public triumph of Jesus.

Now what happened when the American troops returned from France at the end of World War I or when Charles Lindbergh successfully crossed the Atlantic for the first time in his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, or more contemporary, when the New England Patriots returned to Boston. What happened? In all those cases, there's these huge celebrations, right?

There's ticker tape parades. There's huge bombastic parades. There's celebrations. There's shouts. There's all kinds of things going on. Now listen carefully.

So it is with the rapture. Now, typically, many people have this popular view of the rapture that looks like this. All of a sudden, there's electric razors on the bathroom sink running, and the person who is shaving is no longer there. And planes and cars start crashing because pilots and drivers have mysteriously disappeared suddenly. Two boys on the high school football team, right, suddenly are gone, and their pads and uniforms are right in the place where the linebacker and the safety were because they've been raptured suddenly out of everyone's presence, and they disappear. and two press operators are working at Whirlpool and all of a sudden one's gone and the other one's still left there.

That typically what the people have the view of the rapture But if i understand this passage correctly the rapture is more like a grand parade than a secret rescue mission it is a huge parade that everybody's gonna see all right everybody's gonna see it why do i say that because because of of what he says here for we who are alive were left until the coming of the lord now i want you to look at that word coming here's what i want you to do if you got a pen and it doesn't soak through the paper in your Bible. Circle that word coming. All right.

That word is the Greek word parousia. Now, I'm not a great fan of throwing Greek at people. OK, some guys like to get in the pulpit and so how erudite and smart they are by telling you about the Greek. This is this two words that you know in Greek now. One is what? Agape.

You all know that one, right? We all know agape. Here's another. Here's the second Greek word you need to pound into your head. Parousia. Here's how it's spelled.

Write it out. Take note. P-A-R O-U-S I-A. Parousia. That's the word translated come in verse 15, or the word translated coming. Now the word parousia can mean presence, it can mean coming, but it was often used of a particular kind of coming.

Parousia was the word that was used to refer to the glorious coming or the official visit of a sovereign to a city, like the emperor arriving for a visit in your city. That was called a parousia. The emperor is coming. A parousia is going to happen. What did that involve? An imperial visit was an event of great pomp and magnificent celebrations with rich banquets and speeches that praised the imperial visitor.

A visit to the local temple. Rich donations games sacrifices statues dedicated arches and buildings built for the person who going to come for the one who going to have a parousia All right And officials and a multitude of people would go out of the city to receive him An official delegation would go out to meet the imperial visitor and escort him back to the city when everything would explode, right? It's like this huge celebration, okay?

And that is what you would think when you saw or heard the word parousia. That's the word used here. When Jesus arrives, parousia, when he comes in this magnificent, triumphal visit, if you will. Now, you say, but it just says coming. That's true. But think about a word that we use when we talk about the beginning of a president's administration. we could say on January 20th Donald Trump began his presidency or we could say on January 20th Donald Trump's presidency was inaugurated now they're both talking about the same thing aren't they? the words essentially mean the same thing except that two different images pop up in your head when you hear those words Right?

When you say he began, you get a picture of a guy showing up at the office and starting his new job. Right? But when you use the word inaugurated, you have visions of fancy formal clothes, all kinds of balls and celebrations. There's been a huge parade that day. All of that happened when the president is inaugurated. Now look, we've loaded those terms differently, haven't we?

Inaugurated isn't that different. My minister was inaugurated here on March 30, 1985. And when you hear that word, you don't get the idea that we had a huge celebration. When we say the president was inaugurated, all of a sudden, we've got different views in our mind. That's what the word coming is all about here. So when you talk about the coming of Jesus, you're talking about his parousia, his triumphal, magnificent, glorious public arrival.

You see And again Jesus coming is like the arrival of a king not the covert operation of a commando Who showed up and scurried some people away and got them out. It's this huge public arrival of the king. And then you come to verse 16 and you see that the parousia comes with great authority. And it's not a quiet type of a thing, is it? Now, the Apostle Paul may be using metaphorical language here.

Maybe we won't hear a trumpet. Maybe we won't hear a voice. But the point is that it's going to be clearly that the king has arrived and got what he wants. All right? For the first thing, he says, it is the Lord himself who arrives. The king himself arrives.

He doesn't send a representative. He doesn't send some kind of deputy. He himself shows up. Right? It's the king himself who's showing up. Now, if the president of Brazil would die tomorrow, at his state funeral, we'd have some representative there.

Typically, that's the vice president's job. If it's someone like the president of Brazil, you send Mike Pence, the vice president, he represents us. But if Queen Elizabeth II would die, guess who'd go to that funeral? Probably the president himself. That's an important event. All right.

And so what he's saying here is the Lord himself is coming. He's not just sending angels here. He's showing up, too. OK. Right. Matthew 24.

The Son of Man comes in the clouds of glory and there's angels. They're involved. But the Lord himself is showing up. And it says he'll descend from the heavens with the cry of command. This cry is like the command of a general. Orders that you dare not disobey.

What's happening here? This cry commands the dead to rise, and they will not disobey the command. This is the command of the general. When he says, come out, all the dead are going to be coming out of their graves. And then he says that he will descend from the heavens with the voice of an archangel. Isn't God's voice good enough?

What? Well, I think it's something like this. Some of you have experienced it. Some of us have only seen it in the movies. The company commander stands before his company of troops and he says, I expect this company to shine when the general arrives for inspection. And then he turns around and walks off.

What's the next thing? The first sergeant barks, you heard the captain. Fall out and get busy. Everybody gets to work. It's kind of like the archangel, right? The general has said his thing. the archangel's saying do it okay and then the last thing he says he's going to descend from heaven with the sound of the trumpet of god now when we look at that he's not talking here about he's not talking here about the trumpet as a musical instrument like we're not going to hear a trumpet concerto when jesus descends from the heavens okay he's using this as the idea using this idea as the trumpet as an instrument of command.

Okay? An instrument of command. Now imagine yourself in a Civil War battle for a moment. Imagine yourself in a Civil War battle. It's chaos. You ever think about being on a battlefield in those days?

You ever, you know, they try to make it accurate for the movies, but I don't know if they can, but in the middle of a battle, what's going on? You've got gunfire going on all around you. You've got artillery shells falling amongst you. You've got the screams of the wounded. You've got shouts of soldiers. So how is the regimental commander going to communicate to his regiment, we're going to charge the opposing forces?

How does he get that order across? You remember? He uses a bugler, right? And everyone knows a certain sound from the bugle means charge. Okay? Right?

We all know what that means. That means charge. And that's what he's talking about here. There's going to be a bugle, if you will, a trumpet sound, that essentially says, come out of the grave. It's time to come out of the grave. So God's trumpet will sound the call for the dead, and they come charging out of the graves Here the point The return of Jesus to the earth to claim his own will be a glorious magnificent very public unmistakable triumph that's what the return that's what the rapture is going to look like no one's going to miss it it's going to be clear that Jesus has come back.

Then he says in verse 17, you can have hope because you will share in Jesus' triumph. Now here's the point. He says in verse 15 and 16 two important things. Verse 15, that the coming of the Lord, those who are still alive, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. And then at the end of verse 16, and the dead in Christ will rise first. That is to say, here's the point, when Jesus comes in this triumphal, magnificent entry, arrival, the dead will have the place of honor.

They will go first. That's the point. Those who are alive who knew Jesus are going to appear with him in glory, and they're going first. Now part of their sorrow was driven by the fact, the folks who might still be alive, part of their sorrow, or the ones who had survived the persecution, part of their sorrow was driven by the fact that they thought that those who had died would not have a share in that glory, that they would miss out on the party.

Okay? They're going to miss out on this. And Paul is trying to make the point clear. You don't need to be so helpless about it. hopeless about those who've died in Christ because they will be resurrected and in fact they will have the place of honor they will be able to go first they're they're heading up first okay you don't have to grieve with no hope because in fact they're going to be raised from the dead and they're going to have the place of honor when Jesus returns it's not just going to be you folks who share in the glory of Christ actually it's going to be these folks too they're also going to be in the parade.

They're also going to be part of the celebrations. You don't have to worry about that You don have to feel so hopeless about that And then he goes on to say that as they burst out of the ground and begin their ascent those who are alive will be caught up with them Now, the idea of that word caught up, okay? Caught up in verse 17. That word, it's one word, has the idea of snatching or seizing by force. you know like someone grabs you and yanks you that's the idea that's the idea there it's like boom like you're just whoo right you're snatched you're grabbed and off you go if you're still alive alright we'll be caught up with them and so as the dead in Christ burst out of their graves and begin their ascent into the clouds those of us who are alive will find ourselves snatched up with them and then he says what together we will meet jesus together then we will meet jesus in the clouds now again i don't want to make too much out of it but that word meet is also an interesting word and it became in the language of paul's day it took on a technical sense you know when i say technical sense.

Here's what I mean. Like the word inauguration. When we say we inaugurated something, we began it. But when we talk about a presidential inauguration, we use inauguration in a technical way, right? This word meet is also became a word that had a technical sense to it that would be used technically in certain things. And it was used in the concept or in the parousia.

It was used in relation to parousia. All right. What does it mean? It could be used technically of a delegation of citizens who went out to meet that imperial dignitary at his parousia and to accord him the proper respect and honor do him by escorting him back to the city. Now this word is used three times in the New Testament. Once here, once in Matthew 25.

I want you to turn there. I want you to see how this word is used. Matthew 25 verse 1 Jesus remember here is talking about his return Matthew 24 he talks about all that surrounding the return of Jesus Matthew 25, he gives some parables to help us to remember to be alert and watchful. Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.

Five of them were foolish and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them. but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps as the bridegroom was delayed they all became drowsy and slept but at midnight there was a cry here is the bridegroom come out to here's our word come out to meet him then all those virgin rose and trimmed their lamps and the foolish said to the wise give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out but the wise answered saying since there will not be enough for us and for you go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves and And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut, and so forth. What's the point?

What does it mean for them to go out and meet him? Does it mean they just get their lamps and they stand there, and when he goes by, they wave? No. The word means they go out to meet him, and they come back for the celebration. They go out to meet. the custom was you hear the news, you go out to meet the bridegroom, and then you all come back for the party.

Turn over to Acts 28. Here's the second place where this word meet is used. Acts 28, Paul is on his way to Rome. Remember, he's on a ship and on his way there, and he lands in Italy. He's making his way up the peninsula. You can see the boot of Italy.

He's making his way up the peninsula as he travels to Rome. And we'll pick the story up in chapter 28, verse 14. There we found brothers, where he is the second day. He came to Puteoli. And he says, there we found brothers and were invited to stay with them for seven days. And so we came to Rome.

And the brothers there in Rome, when they heard about us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and three taverns to, here's our word, to meet us. And seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage. And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier that guarded him. So what did they do? They went out. They met him with what?

For what intention? To come back with him. What's the point? Paul is saying here that at the parousia of Jesus, when he arrives like a king, we're going to, the dead, first, all of us caught up that are left alive, are caught up with them to meet him for what purpose? To be part of the parade that comes down to the earth. Alright?

So what he's saying there is we're going to meet him and be part of that delegation of people who go and meet the dignitary and escort him back. That's the picture that he's drawing here. And so, how do we share in the triumph? We join the triumphal, glorious return of Jesus. We join the parade and we descend to the earth with Jesus. Again, this is not a secret snatching away to heaven, but rather a very public procession to earth.

That's what's happening. And so we share in his triumph. And remember, as we look at other passages in the Bible, people are looking at Jesus, those who are unbelievers now, and are terrified because he's seen in all his glory. But the Bible also makes it clear who shares in that glory. His people. those who are persecuted are now glorified. Now look, Paul's not going to answer every question.

Because right now, what about the earth? I thought we were going to have a new heaven and a new earth. We are. But he doesn't answer all those questions here. The only thing he's talking about here is we are going to share in the triumph of Jesus. I believe he going to descend and us with him to a new earth Somehow that going to happen somewhere in there But he not here to answer all those questions right He says we will ever so So then we forever be with the Lord We will now accomplish the very goal of our salvation, which is what?

Intimate communion with the Lord Jesus and our father through the Holy Spirit. We will now experience the very thing that we were created for with no sin hindering us. we will be with the Lord forever. Now here's the bottom line. You may say, well, Pastor, this has really helped me understand more of the end times. And if you walk away with that, then I've not done what God wants me to do because there's one more verse.

And what does it say? Therefore, I've told you all this for one reason. Therefore, encourage or comfort one another with these. Words. All of this about Jesus returning. All of this about people coming out of the graves.

All of this about meeting Jesus and descending to earth. All of it has one purpose in mind. And what is that purpose? That we look one another in the eye and we say, Your daughter may have died. But she's in the Lord. and she will one day be raised never to die again. That's why he gave us these words.

You can comfort one another. In this world cursed by sin and hostile to the people of God, what kind of comfort does God give you? He says this, in the relentless seeming irresistible march of death you can find comfort Especially especially when death is the weapon that God enemies use against you There's still hope. There's still hope. Because no matter what the enemies of God do to us, what happens? there's coming a day when this very body will be raised from the dead never to die again and I will share in the triumph of Jesus all who belong to Christ will share with him in his glory now I don't know about you that should give you hope you should comfort one another with those words sadly too often we say stupid things to one another like, you know, honey, death is just a part of life.

No, it's not. It's a curse. Our only hope is this. The redemption that Jesus bought for us covers us entirely. Our bodies have been redeemed so that someday these bodies will live forever. You're not going to live as these bodiless spirits just floating around.

You're going to live in a body for eternity, a body that's perfect, a body that will never die, a body that will never experience sickness again. That's our hope. And as sure as I'm looking at you, and you're looking at me, we're going to know each other now we'll probably look a lot better because we be perfect and I hope you recognize me I got so many imperfections but the point is simply this There is comfort in knowing that death does not have the last word.

And that the enemies of God will one day be looking at you and me and saying, wow they belong to him they were right and we come to earth in triumph with the Lord Jesus Christ glory is on the horizon and that's where our hope is so comfort one another with these words Father help us to use these words in the right way Lord as we leave here and as we inevitably are going to face the tragedies in the sin curse world help us to look one another in the eye and comfort one another with these words equip us to be great comforters as we learn and believe about the resurrection and the glory that Jesus has accomplished for us. And so, Father, help us now. You've told us, you've directed us.

Help us now to obey you by being the right kind of comforters. We thank you now in Jesus' name. Amen.