SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/5/2014 12:29 PM
My Worship Time Focus: What Happens
to Christians Who Die PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Message of the
verses: “13 But we do not want you to be uninformed,
brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the
rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again,
even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For
this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we, who are alive and remain
until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 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. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
In today’s SD we will be looking at an introduction to
what Bible students call “The Rapture of the Church.” If one is trying to look for the word
“rapture” in the Scriptures it will not be found, unless one looks at a Catholic
Bible which was translated from Latin, for the word “rapture” comes from a
Latin word that means “to snatch out.”
That is exactly what the rapture is all about as Christ will descend
upon the sky around the earth and will take away all true members of the Church
Age, either living or dead and they will meet the Lord in the air. Those who have died will have their bodies
resurrected which will be a new glorified body, and those who are alive will
have their bodies changed on the way up to meet the Lord in the air, in the
clouds above the earth. This in a
nutshell is what the rapture is all about and there are two major passages in
the NT, three if you count the one in John 14, that speak of the rapture and
since we are in a study of 1 Thessalonians we will stick pretty much to what
Paul wrote to those believers and why he wrote to them about this event.
I have mentioned many times in different SD’s that it was
my fear of death and fear of the end times that the Lord used to draw me to
Himself and during my time when I visited a friend in Florida in 1974 I
listened to a series of tapes by Hal Lindsey on the end times he went over what
the rapture was all about and God has used this experience to not only draw me
to Himself in salvation, but to also lead others to a saving knowledge of Jesus
Christ as I explained to them the truth about the end times and more
importantly the true gospel message.
With that said I want to begin with an introduction to 1
Thessalonians 4:13-18. What I see is
that Paul first of all went to Thessalonica and told the gospel to people in
that city beginning with the Jews as was his practice. He then went to the gentiles and there were
some of them who became believers in Jesus Christ. After a period that we really don’t know how
long Paul was run out of town because of persecution and did not know whether
or now what he had taught time was in vain or not in vain. Later on Paul while in Athens had sent
Timothy to Thessalonica to find out how these believers were and when he received
the report from Timothy he was rejoicing in the Lord because this small, new
church had become an example to others and were growing in the Lord in many
ways. Now what I have to add here is something that I believe happened, and
there is no proof that this is what happened so you may not chose to believe
this is what happened. I believe that
when Timothy came back to Paul that he told Paul that the believers in
Thessalonica had a question about the rapture and this is the reason that Paul
is expounding on this subject. The
problem that they did have was fear, fear that those that were in their church
who had died were going to be some kind of second class citizens of heaven
because they had missed the rapture of the church. Now Paul will have to deal with the in the
second letter that he writes to these believes and we will look at it again
when we study the second letter to the Thessalonians.
In his commentary on 1 Thessalonians John MacArthur
writes the following about the concerns that these believers had about the
rapture: “First, they seem to have been
afraid that they had missed the Rapture, since the persecution they were
suffering (3:3-4) caused some to hear fear they were in the Day of the Lord, which
they obviously had net expected to experience (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2). Furthering that misconception were some false
teachers, about whom Paul warned in 2 Thessalonians 2:2, ‘[Do] not be quickly
shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a
letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord had come.’ But the persecution they were experiencing
was not that associated with the Tribulation or the Day of the Lord. It was merely the persecution that all
believers can expect (2 Tim. 3:12) and Paul has warned the Thessalonians about
(3:3-4).”
Now as we continue with our study of the “Rapture” we
will see that there are some who believe that the Rapture will happen before
the tribulation period, and some believe it will happen at the end of the
tribulation period, and some believe it will happen at the middle of the
tribulation period. I have always
believed that the Bible teaches that the Rapture will happen before the
Tribulation period and as we go on through our study I will give evidences of
this belief. As we see here that the
Thessalonians believed that they had missed the rapture give evidence that they
believed that Paul had taught them that the rapture would happen before the
tribulation for they believed they were in the tribulation period, otherwise
they would have not been worried that they were in the tribulation period if
they were taught the rapture happened at the end of the tribulation period.
Now as we begin to look at other things that Paul was
addressing we see in verse 13 that Paul is addressing to them about those who
have fallen asleep. We can see a direct
change in what Paul had been teaching or writing about with these words “But we
do not want you to be uninformed, brethren.”
These words show a change in what Paul was writing to them about. Now we will get into what he means when he
says “fallen asleep,” later on, but it actually means that a person who is in
the Lord when he dies has his body asleep, but his soul goes directly to heaven
for Paul wrote to the Corinthians “to be absent from the body and to be at home
with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8b).” The Bible
does not teach of soul sleep as some contend that it does for the soul never
sleeps only the body does. With this
said we can understand why Paul writes that true believers do not grieve as
others who have no hope grieve and with this said I will quote from William
Barclay who was quoted by John MacArthur in his commentary on this subject on
how unbelievers feel about death. “In
the face of death the pagan world stood in despair. The met it with grim resignation and bleak
hopelessness. Aeschylus wrote, ‘Once a
man dies there is no resurrection.’
Theocritus wrote, ‘There is hope for those who are alive, but those who
had died are without hope.’ Catullus
wrote, ‘When once our brief light sets, there is one perpetual night through
which we must sleep.’ On their
tombstones grim epitaphs were carved. ‘I was not; I became; I am not; I care
not.’” (The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, rev,
ed. [Louisville: Westminster 1975], 203).
At the end of his beginning commentary on these verses
(4:13-18) John MacArthur gives us the direction we are going to be taking as we
study these verses: “The Thessaloians’
ignorance about the Rapture caused them to grieve. It was to give them hope and to comfort them
that Paul discussed that momentous event, giving a fourfold description of
it: its pillars, participants, plan, and
profit.” We will follow this outline
along with looking at some of the things that Dr. Warren Wiersbe has to say as
he comments also on these verses in the days to come. I hope and pray that this study will benefit
all of those who read it.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Job” (Job 1:21).
Today’s Bible
question: “Where did Paul leave his
cloak?”
Answer in our next SD.
7/5/2014 1:48 PM
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