The King is Coming!

There are few doctrines that cause more controversy, fear and confusion in the church than the doctrine of Christ’s Return. Granted, some of the books in our Bibles such as Daniel and Revelation are written in a form of literature and use symbolic language that we are not familiar with in the twenty first century, but thankfully there are also passages that use plain language that is easy to understand. The passage before us today is one of those passages. Because of its length I am going to divide our reading in half, beginning with the teaching we find in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 ESV

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

The first issue Paul addresses is the fate of those believers who had died. If you recall, Paul had only been able to stay in Thessalonica a few weeks before he was chased out of town. During that time, he was able to teach them the beginnings of Christian doctrine. One of the doctrines he began to teach them about in the doctrine of Christ’s Second Coming. They were very excited about the prospect of Jesus coming back and setting up His Eternal Kingdom, but now some of their members had died and these new believers were concerned that their dead friends and relatives would miss out on being a part of this glorious Kingdom.

In fact, it appears that many of them had fallen into a hopeless grief concerning their dead friends and relatives. This should not surprise us, because the Roman and Greek culture of that time saw little hope in death. Paul’s word to them (and to us) is yes, we have grief when a Christian passes away, but we also have hope because the King is Coming!

The King is Coming, Be Hopeful!

The first reason we can have hope is found in verse 14:

1 Thessalonians 4:14 ESV

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

In saying that “God will bring with (Jesus) those who have fallen asleep,” Paul is teaching that the souls of dead Christians are already with Jesus. This alone gives us great hope. The believing parents, siblings and friends, as well as the young children of believers who have died are all now with Jesus and there in His presence, they know joy and happiness beyond anything we can imagine!

When the Bible speaks of dead believers as being “asleep” it is not teaching that the dead are unconscious, but rather it is speaking of the state of our bodies. Paul speaks of death this way not as a polite euphemism, but to communicate the sure and certain hope of resurrection. We have all heard of mothers who have awaken their babies because they were sleeping so hard it appeared they were not alive. At death, the bodies of believers may appear lifeless, but because of their union with Christ, all Jesus has to do is speak a word of command and their bodies will spring up with life. We see Jesus using the language of sleep in the stories of Lazarus and the ruler’s daughter.

The resurrection and rapture will be anything but “secret”. We read in this passage that when Christ comes again, He will be descending in the “clouds.” These clouds are not the everyday clouds you see in the sky, but rather the glory cloud that surrounds God. It is within this glory cloud that the “dead in Christ” will descend with Him. It is within this glory cloud that they will be reunited with their glorious resurrection body and it is within this cloud that those believers who remain alive at the time of Christ’s Second Coming will be “snatched up” into!

What a great hope we have in sharing in Christ’s resurrection. Have you noticed that each Sunday the majority of prayer requests have something to do with some weakness in our present bodies. No one is spared from sickness, injury and eventually death. People place their hope in science to solve this problem, but the Bible teaches us this is a vain hope. We are sick, injured and eventually die not because of the lack of medical technology, but because of sin. Christ, not science, is the only cure for sin and death!

This leads us to our final hope—those believers who remain alive at are caught up into the Glory Cloud to save them from the wrath of God. When comes back a second time, He is not coming back to save the world, but to judge it! Anyone who remains upon the earth will be destroyed! This terrible day of judgement is called The Day of the Lord and it is the timing of this Day, that Paul addresses in the second half of our Scripture text. Let’s read that text:

1 Thessalonians 5:1–11 ESV

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

Apparently, the Thessalonians had forgotten what Paul had previously taught them—the coming of the Lord will be sudden and unexpected, therefore we must be ready. This leads us to the second point:

The King is Coming, Be Ready!

Our text teaches us that there are only two types of people in this world: Those who are ready for Christ’s Second Coming and those who are not.

Those who are not ready are called “children of the darkness.” They live their lives in an illusion of peace and security, like a person who is asleep or drunk they don’t see the dangers racing towards them. When people see the glory cloud of God coming down from heaven there will be no time to repent and there will be no escape! Jesus warns us of this when He said:

Matthew 24:36–44 ESV

“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

So how do we make sure we are ready for that Day? Paul tells us how:

1 Thessalonians 5:8–10 ESV

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.

By placing our faith and love in Jesus, we have a sure hope of salvation. Paul has already written of this in chapter one, the Thessalonians had “turned to God from serving idols to serve the living and true God...

1 Thessalonians 1:10 ESV

and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

If you trust in Jesus as your Lord and Savior your destiny is to be safe and sound in the Glory Cloud of God!

At this point I must ask each and every one of you: Are you ready? Have you placed your faith in Jesus Christ? There is no other way to be saved from the fires of God’s wrath.

But if you have placed your faith in Christ, there is one final word you need to hear:

The King is Coming, Be Encouraged!

Twice in our passage Paul tells his readers to be encouraged and encourage our fellow believers.

First, he tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4:18 to be encouraged by our sure and certain hope of being either resurrected or being raptured into the Glory Cloud of God. It is there that we will meet the Lord and it is there that we will be with Him forever! Even the angels of heaven must shield their eyes from the radiance of God’s Glory Cloud, but we will be so powerfully transformed that we will not only be able to look into it, we will actually be IN it! The apostle John writes of this saying:

1 John 3:2 ESV

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

The second place Paul tells us to be encouraged and encourage each other is at the end of our reading in chapter 5. Here as we have already learned is the sure and certain hope of salvation we have in Christ. No Christian lives a perfect life. Christians still sin, and the Devil will use those times to rob us of our assurance of salvation. Paul tells Titus that the Second Coming of Christ is our “blessed hope,” but many Christians live in needless fear. Perhaps this is why so many try to figure out the “day and the hour.” They think they will be ready if they can know “when” Christ is coming again, but all we need to be ready is to know Jesus as our Savior.

What an encouraging word this is. Sometimes we make the Christian life way too complicated. All we need is faith in Christ and this is all other people need as well. You don’t need a perfect life, nor do you need to figure out the timing of the Second Coming, all you need is Jesus!