The Return Series

• Verse 17 speaks to those who are alive at the time.

• We see a chain of eight things that will occur when the Lord returns!

1 Thessalonians 4:16 (NET 2nd ed.)

16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

• 1. The Lord Himself will come down from heaven!

• When God determines it is time for the return, Jesus is coming in a VERY public way!

• The decent will be visible (Revelation 1:7).

• Audible (1 Thess 4:16-17)

• It will be majestic. (2 Thess 1:7)

• 2. There will be an audible shout of command from the voice of the Archangel (chief of the angels).

• The phrase "a shout of command" pictures an officer shouting orders to his troops.

• The command is a command given by someone in authority!

• 3. The trumpet of God will sound!

• The Archangel shouts the command and sounds the trumpet of the Lord!

• In the Old Testament, whenever God "came down" to man, the occasion was marked by a blast from the trumpet! Exodus 19:16-19.

• 4. The dead in Christ will rise first!

• The disembodied souls of those who have died in Christ before the event will return with Him and be resurrected into the new glorified bodies!

• The pagan thought and some Jews (Sadducees) thought death meant dead forever!

• That is not so, according to Jesus!

1 Corinthians 15:51–53 (NET 2nd ed.)

51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—

52 in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

• Now we see how things will be for those alive during the Second Coming!

1 Thessalonians 4:17 (NET 2nd ed.)

17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

• 5. Those who are alive, who are left.

• There will be Christians on earth when the Lord returns; this return is not some secret Left Behind series book; it is very public, and all will see!

• There will be no 3rd coming, only a second!

• 6. Those alive will be caught up with those who previously died in Christ!

• The Greek phrase "caught up" was translated into the Latin verse with the word RAPERE, and then this Latin word was translated into the English equivalent, RAPTURE.

• That is where we get the thought of a rapture.

• This event does not take place at ANY point BEFORE the second coming!

• It is during this point that those who are alive will receive glorified 1 Corinthians 15:51-53 bodies!

• 7. In the clouds, we meet the Lord in the air!

• We get to be with Jesus!

• 8. We will always be with the Lord!

• These are the order of events that will happen at the second coming!

• After everyone is raised, it will move to Judgement. Matthew 25.

• Let's finish with verse 18.