The Rapture - 1 Thessalonians 4

Somebody tell me about something that is coming up that you are looking forward to.  Are you going on vacation?  Is there a holiday coming up you are looking forward to?  You can’t wait for me to be quiet?  What is it? 

Now tell me how you are preparing for this big event?  What are you doing to prepare yourself physically, mentally, financially, spiritually, etc? 

Mr. and Mrs. Smith had just reached the airport in the nick of time to catch the plane for their two-week's vacation in Hawaii. "I wish we'd brought the piano with us," said Mrs. Smith. "What on earth for?" asked her husband.
"I've left the tickets on it."

We all know that preparation is important but did you ever think how important it was to be ready for Jesus to come back?  I’m not sure who wrote it but I like this poem.

There's a man in yonder glory I have loved for many years,

He has cleared my guilty conscience and has banished all my fears.

He is coming in a moment in the twinkling of an eye,

And no time will be allotted for you to utter one good-bye.

No time to kiss the husband or embrace the loving wife,

If they are but united in the bonds of holy life.

Are you ready, Christian, ready, for shout and trump and voice?

Will His coming make you tremble or cause you to rejoice?

Are you walking, talking with Him daily, taking Him your care,

Do you live so close to heaven that a breath would waft you there? 

Quoted in Fairest of All, Herbert Lockyer, Eerdmans, 1936, p. 71.

What preparations are you making for one of the greatest events in the history of the world?  I read about a little girl who was asking her mama questions.  "Mommy, do you believe Jesus will come back?" "Yes." "Today?" "Yes." "In a few minutes?" "Yes, dear."

"Mommy…would you comb my hair?"  Don Hussong.

I’m afraid that is probably more preparation than most of us have made.  And while we need to be prepared for it, it is also one of the most comforting things to know and understand more about the rapture of the church.  I say it is comforting because that is exactly why Paul writes the church in Thessalonica.  He wanted to comfort them with the truth of God’s Word about what happens when we die and how this whole rapture thing is going to happen.

Just like there is today, there was some confusion back then about what was going to happen in the end.  Do you ever think about it?  Do you ever think about how it is going to end?  Well, since some people may not believe in the rapture or “snatching away” of the church before the Tribulation, I think you will see why it is important to be prepared for it and how it should affect your life today.

Let’s turn to the book of 1 Thessalonians and chapter 4:13-18.  Thessalonians is back in the back of the Bible just past Colossians and before the other “t” books, Timothy and Titus.  And like I said, Paul is writing to comfort them about some questions they had about their loved ones who had died.  And even today this passage is used to comfort family members at funerals or anytime somebody needs encouragement because there is nothing but good news here.

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. ¹⁴ For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. ¹⁵ According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Wow!  There is a lot going on in those verses and a lot to see.  And I told you that there was nothing but good news here and that’s true.  But as for my sermon, I have good news and bad news.  Now, I know as well as any preacher that every good sermon has 3 points and a poem, right?  Pretty sure that’s what Peter did and 3000 people were added that day.  So my good news is that I already have the poem out of the way.  The bad news is that I have 5 points.  But I promise they will be as brief as possible.

I want to say before we get to the points one thing real quickly about a phrase Paul uses in verse 13.  When he says “those who fall asleep” we all know that he means “to die”.  It’s like saying someone has passed away.  It’s just a little more delicate to say it that way and in no way should it be taken to mean that our souls sleep.  There is no soul sleep.  He is only talking about our physical bodies.

Now, as to the points I want to make, I give credit to commentator W.W. Wiersbe for making them all start with the same letter so they are easy to remember.  We will see the revelation, the return, the resurrection, the rapture and the reunion.  Maybe making them all start with the same letter will make up for having so many of them.  First let’s look at the revelation that inspired this passage.  Look at verse 15.

Paul gives credit to Jesus Himself for giving him this revelation.  In 1 Corinthians, Paul is telling the church at Corinth about this same subject, the resurrection, and he tells them how he got this information in chapter 15:3-8.   “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.”

So, Paul is starting off here assuring us that what he is writing is absolutely true because he got it from the mouth of Jesus Himself.  Then he goes on to talk about the return of Christ.  It is my understanding that President John F. Kennedy once asked Billy Graham if he really believed that Jesus Christ was going to return one day.
“Yes, sir, Mr. President.  I certainly do” said Billy Graham. Kennedy then asked, “Then why do I hear so little about it?”

And that’s a great question.  It ought to be on our minds all the time.  It ought to be that one great thing that we look forward to and enjoy talking about.  The Bible talks a lot about it.  And here Paul gives us some details about how it is actually going to happen.
In verse 15, he describes it as the “coming of the Lord”.  That word “coming” is the Greek word “parousia” which is also used to describe the Second Coming of Christ but this does not mean that they are the same event.  Not at all.  We will talk about some of the differences as we go but the first difference is that at the rapture, Jesus will appear to His followers, not on earth, but “in the air” as he says in verse 17. At the rapture, Christ appears in the air without setting foot on the earth.  At the Second Coming, Zechariah 14:4 tells us that “His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east.”  (Dr. Jeffress, Perfect Ending, pg. 75)

Now, let’s look at what Paul says about the resurrection.  Some people are confused about this but Paul makes it very understandable.  He says, “we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep… For the Lord himself will come down from heaven… and the dead in Christ will rise first.”

First, I love how Paul uses the pronoun “we” to suggest that he expected he would still be alive when Christ came.  Theologians call this the doctrine of Imminent Return, meaning that we believe this could all happen at any moment.  And when it does happen, Paul says that the dead in Christ shall rise first and then the believers who are still alive.  But how can that happen if we know that when we die that being away from the body is at home with the Lord as it says in 2 Corinthians 5:8?

Well, when we die, our spirit goes immediately into the presence of the Lord but our body is left behind just like the body of Christ was left behind until that first Easter morning.  So, Paul is saying that the bodies of the dead will be resurrected first and then those who are still alive will join them in the air with Jesus.  Well, that brings up the question of how the bodies of the dead will be resurrected especially if they have decomposed or maybe not all there.  What about those who have been cremated or lost at sea or blown apart by a bomb?

Well, Paul is talking about resurrection, not reconstruction.  In 1 Corinthians 15, starting at about verse 35, he points out that the resurrection of the human body is like the growing of a plant from a seed.  The flower is not the identical seed that was planted yet there is continuity from the seed to the plant.  Christians shall receive glorified bodies, like the glorified body of Christ.  The dead body is the seed that is planted in the ground.  The resurrection body is the flower that comes from that seed.  (Wiersbe, pg 180)

Now let’s look at verse 17 to see the actual rapture.  “After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”  If you will notice, the word “rapture” is not used here.  In fact, the word “rapture” itself is used nowhere in the Bible.  But the Latin translation of the phrase “caught up” is “rapturo” from which we get the word “rapture”. 

To be caught up literally means to be snatched quickly from one place and moved to another.  It is the word used to describe what happened to Philip after he baptized the eunuch in Acts 8.  He was snatched up, caught up, raptured, if you will.  And here Paul says we are going to hear 3 things at the rapture.  We are going to hear God give a command with a loud voice.  We will hear the archangel.  And we will hear the trumpet call of God.

And all of this is going to happen in the twinkling of an eye, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:52.  We will hear Jesus call out just like He did in front of the tomb of Lazarus.  You have heard it said that if Jesus had not used the name of Lazarus when He cried out “Lazarus, come out!” that every grave would have opened.  Well, He is not going to use our names and every believer will come out and be raised up to Heaven with Jesus.

I don’t know what the archangel is going to say and I can’t imagine what the trumpet of God is going to sound like but it will be obvious.  It will be unavoidable.  It will be glorious.  And it will lead to the reunion of all believers, the bride of Christ, being united with the Bridegroom.  We will be resurrected and transformed into the type of body Jesus had after His resurrection.  And it will be a body free of the pain and suffering and tears that come with these bodies we have here. Let’s look closer at the reunion.  In verse 17, where Paul says we will “meet the Lord in the air” that Greek word translated “meet” carries the idea of meeting a royal person or an important person.  (Wiersbe, pg 181) How cool is that?

In our family, like in yours as well, I imagine, we have had death. I have had to go to funerals of people that I am related to and that I love and I still miss and always will. Everybody goes through this, but in our family, and I hope it is in yours, these funerals can turn into a party. It’s a family reunion and it’s so good to see folks I haven’t see in so long and stories are told and there is a lot of laughing and hugging and carrying on. Most of the time, our family knows how to “put the fun back in funeral.”  

Do you know how we can have such a good time at the funeral of a loved one? It’s not because we don’t love that person. We still miss those that have gone on ahead. It’s just that we know that they have gone on ahead and we will see them again in resurrected bodies on streets of gold and in the presence of our Savior, Jesus! I love my family. I miss my uncles and aunts and grandparents that are gone and I can’t wait to see them again but I want to see Jesus first in Heaven.

When I think of everything He has done for me; that He has forgiven me when I didn’t deserve it; that He has given me peace and joy and an abundant life here on earth just like He promised; when I think of how He has made good come from bad even when it was bad choices I have made; when I think of how He loved me before I loved Him and He loved me enough to die for me, then I can’t wait to see Him.

Yes, I have a lot of questions for Him.  And I don’t know if I will still have all of those questions when I get there or not but I have an idea that it will be enough just to be in His presence.  I will have all of eternity to visit with my family and to pepper David and Paul and Elijah with questions.  I will have all of eternity to visit with Rahab, sing with Mary, and laugh with my family.

Since I have already blown the “3 points and a poem” ideal for a sermon, let me give you one more quick poem by Richard Baxter:

My knowledge of that life is small,

The eye of faith is dim,

But it's enough that Christ knows all,

And I shall be with him.

So, what are you doing to prepare for the rapture?  Are you ready spiritually?  Does it motivate you to live a more Christ-like life?  What do you want to be doing when He comes?  Maybe a better question is what do you not want to be doing when He comes?

Let’s bow our heads and close our eyes and, as the music plays, let me ask you if you know for sure that you will be there when you die. Some people don’t like to think about that but, at some point, you need to think about it and that point is right now since we are never guaranteed another breath.

Ask God for forgiveness and turn away from your sins and accept His free gift of eternal life in Heaven with Him. It is only by His grace and your faith that it happens and it can happen for you today.