Eschatology 3 Of 16 Our Glorified Bodies (2 Of 2)

• At the Second Coming, the Lord will literally come to the earth and set up His kingdom on earth for a thousand years.

• When the rapture of the church takes place, the Lord will not come back to the earth, but the church will be caught up to meet Him in the air.

Look at 1 Thess 4:17 “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

The word Rapture is not mentioned in the Bible, but there is a word in the Bible that means the same thing.

For example, the word “Caught” in verse 17, is the Greek word “harpazo´ (pronounced as har-pad'-zo). It means to SEIZE, CATCH, PLUCK, PULL, TAKE (BY FORCE).

All the demons in Hell will not be able to stop the rapture of the church. God, by His mighty power, will pluck the church from the earth.

The tribulation period is preparing to start, but before it starts, the church must be snatched away.

Illus: It will be like a child standing on a train track, with a train coming towards the child at a speed of a hundred miles an hour, and just before the train crushes the child, someone reaches out and snatches the child to safety.

It will all happen in the twinkling of an eye. It will happen so fast, it will all be over before anyone really knows what is happening!

When the rapture of the church takes place, it will be one of the greatest things that has ever happened to us mortals.

WHAT KIND OF BODY WILL WE RECEIVE?

The Bible says we are going to receive a body FASHIONED AFTER HIS GLORIFIED BODY.

Look at Philippians 3:21, we read, “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”

If our bodies are going to be FASHIONED AFTER HIS GLORIFIED BODY, we can see what kind of a body we will have. We have already seen that -

I. OUR GLORIFIED BODY WILL BE LIKE THE BODY OF CHRIST

II. OUR GLORIFIED BODY WILL BE A BODY OF FLESH AND BONES

III. OUR GLORIFIED BODY WILL BE A BODY FILLED WITH NEW KNOWLEDGE.

IV. OUR GLORIFIED BODY WILL BE A BODY WHERE THE SPIRIT DOMINATES

V. OUR GLORIFIED BODY WILL BE UNLIMITED BY TIME, SPACE AND GRAVITY

If God’s Word stopped there, and our new glorified bodies did not have anything else, it would already be something to shout about.

But here is the good news, THERE IS MORE! For example-

I. OUR GLORIFIED BODY WILL BE ETERNAL

These mortal bodies of ours are like the automobiles we drive in THREE ways.

(1) THESE MORTAL BODIES OF OURS ARE LIKE CARS IN THAT A CAR COMES WITH A WARRANTY

Illus: You can buy a brand new car, and before you ever buy the car, they will say, “We will only guarantee it will run 50,000 miles.” It doesn’t matter how much you paid for it, they are not going to guarantee you another mile!

These mortal bodies of ours are the same way. When we reach the age of 30 to 32, you can expect that they are going to start giving us some trouble and begin to slow down.

Illus: Baseball and football players have to retire when they reach their early 30’s, because they are going downhill from there. Boxers have to retire in their early 30’s because from then on it is downhill.

Our bodies not only begin to slow down, they are like a car in that they begin to show deterioration.

• We can buy Oil of Olay by the buckets, but if we live long enough, we all look like dried-up prunes.

• Every year, women spend billions of dollars trying to hide and cover up what nature is doing to them, but it is a losing battle. No matter how hard they try to win that battle, nature will eventually win!

• When we were young, we could jump out of the bed, but now we can lay in bed and our bones will snap, crackle and pop so loud that the noise will wake us up.

Someone asked, “When Grandma gets to heaven, will she have all those wrinkles?” Here is the good news, “No!”

Illus: Someone walked up to an elderly lady and said, “Lady you have wrinkles in your hose.” She said, “I do not have any hose on!”

These old bodies of ours are wearing out fast. But the aging process will have no affect on us in our glorified bodies.