The Rapture of the church
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Good morning Rosedale, welcome also those that are listening online.
Everyone with that extra hour of sleep should be alert and ready to receive what the Lord would have for us.
I want to talk a minute on the rapture of the church. One of the end times event of Jesus coming to get his bride the church.
I think people have questions and I think that there is some misunderstanding of what that means and how it will happen.
I am not an expert on the end times but the Word of God is clear on some of the end time events and what we can expect to see happen as we move closer to the day and times.
The actual word rapture is not in the bible- the word we translate rapture is the Hebrew word that means to be caught up. Defined it means to grasp or seize.
Believers will be caught up to Him or raptured up to Him. It will be a time the whole world finds out who really is a believer in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
It is not your name on membership of a church
Not because grandma and grandpa bought the pews.
Not the church you have always gone too.
It won’t matter who built the church- it is an active relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord of your life.
Planning too or blaming someone why you have not done it yet will not matter.
THOSE THAT KNOW HIM WILL BE GONE IN AN INSTANT. WHATEVER THEY WERE DOING WILL STOP AND IT WILL BE CHAOS ON EARTH.
So if we can, let’s see what the bible says about the rapture of the believers (bride of Jesus Christ)
Jesus spent 3 years walking with his disciples, teaching them, training them and predicted that He would go but that He would come back for them.
Every promise that He made He would keep.
John 14:1-3 Read from Bible
Jesus goes to prepare a place for us
I will (promise) to come back to get you (believers)
I know you don’t understand it now but you will.
I don’t know about you but I think sometimes you need a scorecard to keep track of the events and happenings of end times. I would say read it, grasp it, the best you can and know that every promise He will fulfill and if Jesus said it, I believe it and I trust Him to work all the details out.
Be ready is the best advice that Jesus gives us as believers.
Know what to expect and know what is happening and be ready!
Our text 1 Thessalonians 4 gives us a detailed account of what will happen- for those that live life with Eat, drink, and be merry attitude and do not see the times a coming will be the ones surprised and left behind. Millions of people will be blown away as so many people are missing.
Can you imagine the news people trying to explain how all these people just vanished without admitting that they have been raptured by Jesus Himself.
All those Holy Spirit filled believers gone
All those Mom’s, Dad’s, and grandma’s who warned their families that He was soon coming back.
1 Thessalonians chapter 4 (13) Paul says that he does not want us ignorant or uninformed.
You have people who are asleep (died) they are dead here in the ground and alive up in heaven. Explain that in a minute.
They had questions- the disciples were waiting for Jesus to come back but some of the people were dying.
What happens to those who died? Will they experience the rapture?
What if I died? Will I miss the rapture? Paul says I want you to understand this.
Paul says you need to know something about people before they die here and the rapture.
Flesh and blood cannot inherit heaven. This is why good people won’t make heaven alone without Jesus. The sinful body cannot be in sinless heaven and why only the souls of those who have given their life to Christ have gone to heaven.
1 Corinthians 15:17-23 Read from Bible
You cannot go to heaven the way you are- there has to be a TRANSFORMATION for your sinful body.
For a believer, absent in the body is to be present with the Lord. 2 Corinthians 5:8
Immediately you will be enjoying the presence of the Lord as a believer.
Your maybe decaying body, or whatever has happened to it has to have a transformation.
I don’t know how the Lord will do that but He will do that.
He is not talking about Judgment day- He is talking about the tribulation period, the seven years of trials and destruction here on earth. So I don’t know what you believe- some believe we leave pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation (middle of the seven years) and post-tribulation (we will experience most) I know Jesus is taking his church out of here! I would like to think that He will get us out of here before the wrath comes. AMEN! Sooner rather than later.
He will come get us before it gets that bad! PTL
He will get His Church- His Bride!
1 Thessalonians 4:13- “So that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.”
So we as believers don’t grieve like those who have no hope.
Those who have died in Jesus have gone on ahead of us.
I cannot wait to see those I love who have loved the Lord. We are promised as believers that we will see them again. It will be a joyful time.
Paul wants us to know that those believers who have died before us did not miss the rapture.
We do not have to grieve as those who have no hope.
We can be sad because they are there and we are here but one day as believers, we will see each other again because of the goodness and love of our Almighty Lord.
Paul gives us the best details of the mystery of the mighty workings of the Lord.
Question:
HOW CAN WE BE IN HEAVEN WITH THE LORD AS DYING HERE AND COMING OUT OF THE GROUND TO MEET THE LORD IN THE AIR AT THE TIME OF THE RAPTURE.
Your body formed by God is lifeless without God breathing life into it- we saw that as God took dirt and breathed life into Adam. Formed his body and then breathed life into it.
So when a believer sleeps (dies) the Soul, his/her spirit is immediately with the Lord. Our last breathe here, the next one with the Lord.
That dead decaying body, lost at sea, cremated, maybe burned is buried somewhere.
At the rapture, the soul coming down will met the transformed body from the ground and will meet together to meet the Lord in the air. Paul records that we should not only not be worried about those who have died before us but that they will go and experience it before us!
In an instant this happens before the people alive on earth will meet the Lord in the air.
(16) “For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven and with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”
Get up- Those dead bodies that resurrected transformed body will met our spirit in the air!
Those believers still alive will have transformed bodies-
(17) “After that, we who are still alive and left will be caught up (raptured) up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”
This is not the Second Coming of Christ!- These are two separate events- that’s why we will have transformed bodies at the rapture and ready and transformed to come with Him at second coming with Jesus and His armies-
The army of the church
His army of angels
Rapture we meet Jesus in the air
Second coming Jesus touches down on the earth and His armies join with Him.
Close-
As a believer, this should bring you great comfort that what the Lord has promised, He will accomplish in and through our lives.
That we do not have to be afraid of death- death does not have a hold on a believer. Those who have died before the rapture will experience the event of the rapture, in fact they will experience it a moment (Twinkling of an eye) before we do as those who are still alive.
That even now, He prepares a place for us in His kingdom! That His promises are amen and amen!
Chorus
“When we all get to heaven-what a day of rejoicing that will be-
When we all see Jesus, will sing and shout the victory.”
That is what Paul tells us we should encourage each other with those comforting words.
Hang on brother! Hang on sister! It would always be like this! Jesus is coming of us!
He has prepared a place for us!
Illustration-
The great preacher F.B. Meyer once asked D.L. Moody, “What is the secret of your success?” Moody replied, “For many years I have never given an address without the consciousness that the Lord may come before I have finished.”
1 Corinthians 15:51-52
Paul not only described the Church as the Bride of Christ, he had much to say about the moment Jesus would return for His Bride. Again to the Corinthians, he wrote, “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed”
The Lord may come at any moment-be ready
It should bring comfort knowing that you are ready- but it should also bring to mind that so many others are not ready- we have a job to do.
Do you want your loved ones to miss an opportunity because you didn’t take a moment to tell them?
Really, any church growth is because people who have experienced the blessing and goodness of the Lord are sharing what He has done with them to others.
I have been re-reading the book of Jim Cymbala and the Brooklyn Tabernacle. It is believers praying intentional for others to experience what they have experienced and putting them in a position to experience it.
One beggar telling another beggar where he got food.
