1st Thessalonians 4:16-18 says, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” This should be a great comfort to us. This is a promise. This is a prophecy. It is going to be fulfilled.
If the Lord calls us home before the rapture of the church, we will be among those who sleep in Jesus, and we will rise from the grave. If we’re alive at the time that He comes and He shouts, we will be transformed. As Paul tells us in 1st Corinthians 15, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” and we will be in His presence forevermore. That’s a lot of comfort. That is comfort that is bigger, that is greater, that is stronger than any of the dark clouds that we’re ever going to see on our horizon. But he doesn’t stop there.
He follows the theme as he goes into 1st Thessalonians chapter five, but he changes it slightly. He changes it from the coming of the Lord for the church to the day of the Lord, which is coming on the unbelievers. “For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us. That whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.”
We have just been told twice in our section to comfort one another. When we see those bookends, we realize all the information he’s giving us is to stimulate me and motivate me to play my part in the family of God and comfort one another. But I want us to understand in the way that is used here in these bookends, is that there are two reasons given why we should encourage one another. The first is we are looking for the return of the Lord and the rapture of the church. We should remind one another when we see souls that are battered and wounded. Remember, this is not the end of the story. This is just the rough journey that leads us to the Kingdom of Light and the kingdom of joy and peace. And so we encourage on the basis that Jesus is coming again. The second reason he gives us, we now see in chapter five, we have not been committed to wrath. God will deliver us from that awful judgment that is coming on the world.
I want to leave you with some comfort. John 14: 1-3, I think, has some marvelous comfort that Jesus gave to His disciples. “Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. In my father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.“
He’s coming again! That was the hope. That was the comfort that encouraged the apostles and the disciples. They were looking every day. His coming! It could be today. We should live with that anticipation. Maranatha!
Detailed audio lessons and notes are here:
https://basictraining.org/rapture/