Night Calls: The Call To Come Up Series

Night Calls: The Call to Come Up 1Thessalonians 4:13-18

Introduction: The King is coming! At anytime, at any moment Jesus Christ may issue the call for His children to come up for all things have been made ready. Are we listening for that call or have we fallen asleep?

Illustration: A young lady busied herself getting ready for a blind date. This was not just dinner and a movie; her date had planned dinner at an exclusive downtown restaurant with live music and dancing. Wanting to make a good first impression she had taken the day off work. She cleaned her apartment; she went out that afternoon to have her hair done and get a manicure. When she got home she did her makeup, put on her best dress and was ready for her date’s arrival. His expected arrival came and went, but she continued to wait patiently.

Finally after waiting over an hour she decided she had been stood up, so she took off her dress, let down her hair put on her pajamas, gathered all her favorite junk food and sat down to watch TV with her dog. Sometime later there was a knock at the door; it was her date. He looked at her surprised and said, “What I gave you an extra two hours and you’re still not ready to go!”

Jesus is coming again. Will you be ready for His return, or will He catch you unprepared? - copied

I. The Sureness of the Rapture - vs. 15-16

A. “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive [and] remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 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.”

B. Note that verse 15 states that these truths iterated by Paul are by the "word of the Lord". The event of the rapture is a fact and it is coming by the authority of the Word of the Lord.

C. For the Lord Himself

1. Christ will send not a representative, emissary, or angel but will come Himself.

2. Acts 1:11 “who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

D. John 14:1-3 “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.”

E. With a Shout

1. The Shout of Authority – Shout = keleusma = to command or order. The term is only used here in the New Testament.

2. Keleusma was used to describe a shout implying authority and urgency. The idea is of a loud, authoritative cry, often uttered in the thick of great excitement. It was the call of a commander to his troops asking if the soldiers were ready for war. The troops would shout in reply "We are ready!"

2. Matthew 25:6 “And at midnight a cry was heard: 'Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!'”

3. John 5: 24-25 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.”

F. The Trumpet Call of God

1. Revelation 4:1 After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things."

2. Throughout the Bible a trumpet or shofar blast was used by the Israelites to announce an important gathering of the people and to assemble them together before the presence of the Lord. It was used to sound an alarm to prepare people for war or judgment. In connection with the Jewish New Year Holiday, Rosh Hashanah, called the Feast of the Trumpets in the Bible, is also known as Yom Teruah meaning “Day of the Awakening Blast.

G. Christ will gather us with the sounding of the an Awakening Blast which will be a clear and certain sound that will be heard by all those who know Christ.