SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/10/2014 7:57 AM
My Worship Time Focus: What Happens
to Christians Who Die PT-6
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1
Thessalonians 4:16-17
Message
of the verses: “16 For the Lord
Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel
and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we
who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.”
In today’s SD we will be looking at
the next main point from John MacArthur’s outline of the forth chapter of 1
Thessalonians which covers verses 13-18, as we look at verses 16-17 today, but
since this is a long section we may have to take more than one day to cover all
of it, but we will see how far we can get today.
The Plan of the Rapture (1
Thessalonians 4:16-17): “16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel
and with the trumpet of
God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive
and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so
we shall always be with the Lord.”
What we will be looking at from this
section is a step by step description of the rapture, for Paul had already
given the explanation to the Thessalonians of what would happen to their
departed love ones and now he will explain the Rapture in full detail.
I will repeat that as I read the
commentary of John MacArthur that he is expressing the differences between the
Rapture of the Church and the second coming of our Lord to planet earth, and
one of the reasons he does this is to show that the Rapture will happen before
the tribulation and before the second coming of Christ to the earth. I am not going to bring up all of the points
of why I believe that the Rapture will happen this way for I have already
stated that this is the way that I see it and therefore will proceed without
making too many comments on this subject.
I have a book that has been updated that is entitle “The Rapture
Question” and it is written by John Walvoord and in this book he gives many,
many reasons why he believes the way that I also believe, and it was partly
because of this book that I became convinced of the position that I take. He also gives the other different views as to
when the Rapture will take place.
We see first of all in this section
that it is the Lord Himself who will come and gather His bride to Himself, as
He descends from heaven. In the first
chapter of the book of Acts we see that the Lord Jesus left planet earth from
the Mount of Olives while His disciples watched Him leave and He was caught up
in the clouds. Angels came to tell His
disciples that this same Jesus will return in like manner, and He will return
to the very spot that He left from at the end of the tribulation period and the
earth will split at that very spot.
Geologists have discovered a giant fault in the earth at this very spot
when they were looking for oil in Israel. It is just waiting for our Lord’s
foot to land before the earthquake will happen.
So it is Jesus Himself who comes as
He descends from heaven and next we see that He gives a great shout. MacArthur writes of this word shout “Keleusma (command) has a military ring
to it, as if the Commander is calling His troops to fall in. The dead saints in their resurrected bodies
will join the raptured living believers in the ranks. The Lord’s shout of command will be similar
to His raising of Lazarus, when “He cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come
forth’” (John 11:43). This is the hour
‘when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will
live’ (John 5:25). The righteous dead of
the church age will be the first to rise—a through that must have greatly
comforted the anxious Thessalonians.”
Next
we learn about the “voice of the archangel” as he will sound. MacArthur writes “There is no definite
article in the Greek text, which literally reads, ‘an archangel.’ In Jude 9, the only other passage in
Scripture that mentions an archangel, the archangel is Michael. Scripture does not say whether or not he is
the only archangel (there were seven archangels according to Jewish
tradition).”
Next we will hear the trumpet of God
and we can compare this to 1 Cor. 15:52 “in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be
raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”
In the book that I read many years ago about how the author took the OT
feats to describe the Rapture said that the feast of Trumpets was the feast
that is the one that shows the Rapture.
We see many uses of the trumpets in the Bible and one of them is to
assemble the people together.
Next we see the dead in Christ rise
first. We have been told that this
section of Scripture was to comfort the Thessalonians and this part in
particular would bring comfort to them for it answers their question of what
would happen to their loved ones who are asleep. This portion gives comfort to us who read it
too and that is why I am glad that they had this question for Paul to answer
and record it in the Scripture. I am
told that the dead will raise a split second before those who are alive, and as
a former Pastor of mine use to say “I am looking for the Upper-Taker and not
the undertaker.” I feel the same way.
We have one more point to look at
and we will save that until our next SD.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I am so
thankful for the Lord giving me understanding to this wonderful truth as ever
since I have heard it, which is what the Lord used to draw me to Himself, I
have been looking forward to this event to take place in my lifetime. It was three days before the death of my
mother that I said to her that it would be wonderful if the Rapture would
happen today, to which she agreed. It
was not in the plan of God for that to happen, but it is in the plan of God for
it to happen when He desires it to happen and I am looking forward to this
event most of all. In the mean time
there is work to be done for the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Be about
that work of the Lord, praying that He will bring someone into my path that is
ready to hear His plan for salvation.
Memory
verses for the week: Review of
Philippians 2:5-11.
5
Have this attitude in yourself which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although
He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be
grasped, 7 but emptied Himself taking on the form of a bond-servant, and being
made in the likeness of men. 8 Being
found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the
point of death, even death on a cross. 9
For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name
above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those
in heaven on earth and under the earth 11 and every tongue will confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Answer
to yesterday’s SD: “The third day” (Acts
10:40). "God raised Him up on the
third day and granted that He become visible.”
Today’s
Bible question: “Who said ‘Whereby shall
I know this? For I am an old man, and my
wife well advanced in years?”
Answer
in our next SD.
7/10/2014
8:51 AM
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