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Jesus Is Coming Soon – Part 1
Introduction:
In his book, “In Times Like These,” the old preacher Vance
Havner said…A farmer was awakened in the middle of the night when his
clock went on a rampage and struck seventeen. He rushed all over the
house waking everybody up shouting, “Get up! It’s later than it ever has
been before!” Havner said, “It is later than it ever has been before,
and the smartest thing any man can do is to set his watch by God’s
clock.” With the surge of catastrophic events that have transpired over
the past year or so; the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile last year, the
earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and in Japan,
the many tornados that swept through the southeast with a death toll
well over 300, people begin to acknowledge that it is later than it has
ever been before and that Jesus must be coming soon.
We certainly cannot discern the timing of His return, but we can
declare the truth of His return. Two thousand years ago, the apostle
Paul believed and declared that Jesus was coming again, that He was
coming suddenly, and that He was coming soon. Harold Wilmington said… 1
Thessalonians tells more about Christ’s second coming than any other of
Paul’s letters. It gives the Bible’s most detailed description of the
Rapture (4:13-18). This morning, it is on my heart to begin focusing on
1 Thess. 4:13 thru 5:11. And as we look at these verses today, we see
that “There Is (A Coming And) A Catching Away Wrapped Up In This
Passage.” We all played many games when we were children. Among those
many games that we played was hide and seek. One person was chosen each
time to close his or her eyes and count while everyone else went to hide
somewhere. Then when the person was finished counting, he would open his
eyes and say, “Ready or not, here I come!” As we look at this chapter,
we notice that…
I.
THERE WILL BE A
RETURN
(VV. 13–15)
(V.15) “coming”
A.
The
Hope
Of His Return (v.13)
hope – (to anticipate, usually with
pleasure); or confidence:--faith, hope.
·
(Titus 2:13)
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the
glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;”
That which is “accepted” in faith, is
“awaited” expectantly. Looking for the object of hope, even the
appearing,
B.
The
Happenings
Of His Return
The “second coming” of the Lord is really in
two phases, “the Rapture” and “the Revelation”. The first stage is “when
Christ comes for His saints in the air,” and the second stage is “when
Christ comes with His saints to earth.”
·
In
Revelation 16:15, we see His coming for His Church, “Behold, I come as a
thief, Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he
walk naked, and they see his shame.
·
In
Revelation 1:7, “Behold, He cometh with clouds; And every eye shall see
Him…” is his coming with His church.
Without making this distinction between the
two phases of the second coming these verses would seem to be
contradictory. There is obviously a difference between Christ’s coming
for His own and Christ’s coming with His own, but the phases are not
contradictory. On the contrary, they are complementary. The
characteristics of the two phases of Christ’s coming…
·
At
the first phase of His coming, He comes to reward; at the second phase
He comes to rule.
·
In
the first phase He comes before the Tribulation; in the second phase He
comes after the Tribulation.
·
In
the first phase He delivers us from the Tribulation; in the second phase
He puts an end to the Tribulation.
·
In
the first phase He comes as a bridegroom for his bride; in the second
phase He comes as King of kings and Lord of lords.
·
At
the first phase He comes with rewards for the saints; at the second
phase He comes with retribution for sinners.
·
At
the first phase He comes to raise the dead in Christ; at the second
phase He comes to destroy the armies of the Antichrist.
II.
THERE WILL BE A
RESURRECTION VS. 15–16
A.
The
Movement
Of The Dead Is Clarified
(2 Corinthians 5:6-8)
“Therefore we are always
confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are
absent from the Lord: {7} (For we walk by faith, not by sight :) {8} We
are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and
to be present with the Lord.”
·
Warren Wiersbe said…
Paul did not say that the soul went to sleep
at death. He made it clear that the soul of the believer went to be with
the Lord: “them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him”
(v.14). He cannot bring them when He returns unless they are with Him.
It is not the soul that sleeps; it is the body. The Bible definition of
death is given in James 2:26 - “For as the body without the spirit is
dead.” At death, the spirit leaves the body, and the body goes to sleep
and no longer functions. The soul-spirit goes to be with the Lord, if
the person has trusted Jesus Christ. “Absent from the body, and ...
present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).
The fact of our Lord’s return is comfort to
us in bereavement, because we know that He will bring with Him His
people who have “died in the Lord.” Jesus Christ will one day return and
bring His people with Him.
·
When will this event occur?
Nobody knows, and it is wrong to set dates.
The fact that Paul used the pronoun we in 1 Thessalonians 4:15, 17
suggests that he expected to be alive when the Lord returned.
Theologians call this the doctrine of the imminent return of Christ.
Imminent means that it can happen at any moment. As Christians, we do
not look for signs, nor must any special events transpire before the
Lord can return. At death, the soul has left the body. But when Jesus
returns, He will bring the souls of those who have died in the Lord and
those souls will be reunited with bodies. But it will not be the old
decaying body, for…
B.
The
Mortality
Of The Dead (And The Living) Is Changed
(1 Corinthians 15:51-54) All who are alive at
the coming of the Lord Jesus shall undergo such a change as to fit them
for their new abode in heaven; or such as shall make them like those who
shall be raised from the dead. This change will be instantaneous (1
Corinthians 15:52), for it is evident that God can as easily change the
living as he can raise the dead; … “In a moment!” says Paul. It will
take place “in the twinkling of an eye.” The word denotes rapid
movement. The transformation of our bodies, living or dead, will take
place in the split second it takes for an eye to gleam.
III.
THERE
WILL BE A
RAPTURE (V. 17)
A.
The
Characteristics Of The Rapture
This phrase “caught up” in verse 17 is the
single Greek word harpazo. when the Greek word harpazo is translated
into Latin, we end up with the Latin word rapere, and our English word
“rapture” has been derived from that Latin word. The Greek word harpazo
is used several times in the New Testament, and these other occurrences
shed light upon the meaning of this word.
·
It
Has The Idea Of Removal
(Matthew 11:12) And
from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven
suffereth violence, and the violent
take it by force.
(Matthew 13:19) When any one heareth the word
of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one,
and catcheth
away that which was sown in his heart.
(John 6:15) When Jesus therefore perceived
that they would come
and take him by force, to make him a
king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.
(John 10:28-29) And I give unto them eternal
life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man
pluck
them out of my hand. {29} My Father, which gave them me, is greater than
all; and no man is able to
pluck
them out of my Father’s hand.
·
It
Has The Idea Of Rescue
(Acts 23:10) And when there arose a great
dissension, the chief captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled
in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to
take him by force
from among them, and to bring him into the castle.
(Jude 1:23) And
others save with fear,
pulling them out of the fire; hating
even the garment spotted by the flesh.
·
It
Has The Idea Of Relocation
(Acts 8:39) And when they were come up out of
the water, the Spirit of the Lord
caught away
Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way
rejoicing.
(2 Corinthians 12:2) I knew a man in Christ
above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or
whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one
caught up
to the third heaven.
B.
The
Components
Of The Rapture
(V.16)
·
The Authority
Manifested In The Shout
As Matthew Henry said, “The appearance will
be with pomp and power, with a shout – the shout of a king, and the
power and authority of a mighty king and conqueror.”
·
The
Accompaniment Manifested In The Voice Of The
Archangel
An innumerable company of angels will attend
him. Perhaps one, as general of those hosts of the Lord, will give
notice of his approach.”
·
The Attention
Manifested In The Trump Of God
As you study the Old Testament, you discover
that that the blowing of the trumpet signified many things such as the
beginning of a battle or the victorious outcome of a battle. It
signified that the camp of Israel was to begin a movement and a marching
forward. It signaled an assembling of the people. The blowing of
trumpets served to remind the people on their worship days when the
doors of the temple were opened that the Lord was God. They blew
trumpets on the day that David brought up the Ark of the Covenant.
Trumpets were also blown to mark the
coronation of a new king.
Conclusion:
Tim LaHaye said…“When I was a boy, I took a tour of Henry Ford factory
in Dearborn, Michigan. Then we saw an electromagnetic crane move over a
large railroad car filled with what seemed to be junk steel. At the flip
of a switch, everything in that car leaped up to the magnetic crane.
Then I saw a strange thing: some pieces of steel fell back into the car.
I waited until others had left on the tour and then climbed up to look
inside and find out why these pieces fell back in. I found they were not
steel at all. Lying on the bottom of the car were some old two-by-fours,
a broom handle, and some broken pieces of wood. Only objects made of the
right component responded to the magnet; the rest were (as Tim LaHaye
can uniquely express it), left behind.”
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