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If you have your Bibles (and I hope you do) please turn with me to 1 Thessalonians 4. If you’re able and willing, please stand with me for the reading of God’s Holy Word:
This is the Word of the Lord!
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Since the 1970 publication of Hal Lindsey’s best-selling book The Late Great Planet Earth, dramatic images of the rapture have dominated evangelical thinking.
Lindsey described his idea of the rapture in the words of a fictional reporter:
“There I was, driving down the freeway and all of a sudden the place went crazy…cars going in all directions…and not one of them had a driver.”
A sports journalist noted: “Only one minute to go and they fumbled—our linebacker recovered—he was about a yard from the goal when—zap—no more linebacker—completely gone, just like that!”
Images like these have been replayed in Christian novels and movies and more than a few Bible studies, depicting believers as suddenly vanishing without a trace.
The understanding taught in Lindsey’s popular book and accepted by many evangelicals today is a view that was virtually unknown before the mid-nineteenth century.
Teachers of the pretribulation, secret rapture will usually admit that the key features of their doctrine are not found in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, the only verse in the Bible to describe the rapture directly.
For instance, John MacArthur, who believes in the secret rapture, writes that “no solitary text of Scripture makes the entire case for the pretribulation rapture.”
This being true, advocates of this view make their case not on the direct teaching of any Bible passage but from inferences taken from Scripture on the basis of a presupposed system of doctrine.
As much as people want to make this passage in 1 Thessalonians 4 about the rapture, it just isn’t.
It simply isn’t about that.
Paul mentions a few things here about the coming of the Lord, so we’ll discuss that, but the point of this passage is found in verse 13.
Verse 13 is the reason Paul’s writing his brothers and sisters in Thessalonica.
Paul mentions Christians who “sleep” three times in our text for today (vv.
13, 14, 15) and then refers to them twice more (vv.
16, 17).
Paul uses the word sleep as a euphemism for death.
It’s a little nicer euphemism than “kicked the bucket” or “bought the farm” or “another one bites the dust.”
The issue that Paul addresses concerns believers who have died.
His primary focus is to address the question that was apparently weighing heavily on the Thessalonians’ minds:
What happens to Christians who die prior to the return of Christ?
Paul and Silas and Timothy, the missionaries who shared the Good News about Jesus with the Thessalonians, don’t want [them] to be uniformed.
They don’t want these new believer’s in Thessalonica to be ignorant about this topic
Part of the reason this passage isn’t an exhaustive explanation of the events surrounding Jesus’ Return is because Paul taught some of this to them in person.
But he didn’t have time, in person, to teach them everything.
So, among the new Christians in Thessalonica, there is some confusion about what happens after a believer dies.
Some, maybe much, of the confusion results from pagan ideas creeping into the church.
That’s an interesting thought: pagan ideas creeping into the church.
It happened then and there.
It happens here and now—pagan ideas creeping into the church.
The world we live in, the ways of the world, the beliefs of the world have a way of impacting those who belong to the church.
There are so many instances of this, specifically where theology is concerned.
When Christians are uninformed about what the Bible says, they’ll believe just about anything.
Someone can say, “You know the Bible says, ‘God helps those who help themselves’ and ‘The Lord will never give you more than you can handle.’”
And the person who doesn’t know their Bible thinks, “Yeah, that sounds like that could be right,” when really the exact opposite is true.
There are people who call themselves “pastors” and gatherings that call themselves “churches” who teach outright heresy about the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, sin, sexuality, heaven and hell, and on and on.
Pagan ideas—unbiblical, unChristian, untrue ideas—can easily creep into the church.
Pagan ideas creep into the church.
And falsehood always clashes with true Biblical Christianity.
We have to be ready and willing to reject any unbiblical teaching, any worldly system of thought that is contrary to what the Bible has to say.
We need to familiarize ourselves with the Bible so that we don’t accept any teaching that differs from what is true.
In this one specific area—what happens to a Christian when they die—Paul doesn’t want his new Christian brothers and sisters to be ignorant or uniformed.
So Paul teaches them what Christians believe.
We Hope in the Lord (v.
13)
I’m not for sure where the world’s hope lies regarding life after death.
I know some believe their goodness will get them to heaven as long as their good deeds outweigh the bad.
One of my favorite TV shows gets almost everything about the afterlife wrong theologically, but unwittingly gets total depravity correct.
The main characters find out there’s a point system to get into “The Good Place” and then realize no one has gotten into “The Good Place” in over 500 years.
No one, not even the “best” people in history.
The writers of the sitcom stumble onto the truth.
No one is good enough.
No one’s good deeds outweigh the bad.
A lot of people put their hope in how good they are.
A number of religious people believe their religious activity and service will make them right with God.
That’s just wrong.
No one’s goodness will get them anywhere.
Most pagan, non-believing people in the ANE believed that death was the end.
You die and that’s it.
It seems the Thessalonians believe some measure of this.
“What happens to our loved ones who believe in Jesus, but die before Jesus comes back?”
They must think that once dead, that’s it for that person, believer or not.
The truth is, writes Paul, there’s hope for the Christian who dies, and hope for those who are left to grieve.
Hope.
Hang your hat there; we’ll come back to that.
When Paul uses the word sleep, he’s referring specifically to the physical body.
When believer’s die, their bodies sleep.
This is not “soul sleep.”
Some of you have heard about and been taught about “soul sleep,” but that concept is completely foreign to the Bible.
You won’t find that anywhere here.
The Bible explicitly affirms the eternal consciousness of every person.
In other words, there will never be a time when a person ceases to exist or ceases to be conscious of his existence.
This is true for both the believer and the non-believer.
When Christians die, their bodies go into the grave, but their spirits go directly into the presence of God. 2 Cor 5:8 “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”
When non-Christians die, their bodies go into the grave, but their spirits go immediately to hell.
Nowhere does the Bible teach that a person ever loses a conscious awareness of where he is or what is happening to him after he dies.
At death, your existence does not end.
Your physical body goes to sleep, but your spirit continues to exist.
That’s part of Paul’s answer elsewhere in the Bible, and possibly something Paul taught the Thessalonians while with them in person.
Paul starts by reminding them to grieve WITH hope.
There are many who grieve without any hope whatsoever.
Paul doesn’t want the Thessalonians to grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
There’s nothing wrong with grief.
Grieve.
Mourn.
We’re instructed to do just that.
Christians simply don’t grieve like the rest.
Christians grieve like Christians.
Christians grieve with hope.
Christians hope in the Lord.
In fact, our hope IS the Lord.
We don’t hope the good stuff we do outnumbers the bad things we do.
We don’t hope that God might be pleased with our religious observance.
We don’t trust our country or our political views to save us.
We trust in the Lord.
Jesus Himself is our hope.
Specifically here in the area of death.
“Death has been overcome by the Risen Lord.
And that has transformed the whole situation for those who are in Him.” -Leon Morris
We hope in the Lord,
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