1 Thessalonians 4

¹³ 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. ¹⁴ For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁵ 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. ¹⁶ 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. ¹⁷ 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. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians 5

¹ Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. ² For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. ³ 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. ⁴ But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. ⁵ For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. ⁶ So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. ⁷ For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. ⁸ 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. ⁹ For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁰ who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. ¹¹ Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

A couple of weeks ago, Hal Lindsey died. I wonder if you recognize that name? Many of you will. And many of you who do not recognize that name will nonetheless have been impacted by Lindsey’s work in ways you may not know.

In 1970, Lindsey published The Late Great Planet Earth. This was a book on prophecy and it absolutely exploded in sales around the world. It is hard to get an updated number on how many copies of The Late Great Planet Earth were sold, but it appears that by 1999 it had sold thirty-five million copies. And that was twenty-five years ago.

I was born four years after that book appeared and I can honestly say that my eschatology was impacted by it. Lindsey wrote not only of Christ’s second coming, but also of how he thought the political realities of that time would come into play: The European Economic Community, Russia, China, and the like. Lindsey painted a vivid and memorable and specific picture of how all of this might play out. If you grew up in the 70s and 80s, this version of the events that would lead up to the second coming will sound familiar…until, that is, the fall of the U.S.S.R. and the rise of Islamic extremism. Now the specific political realities have changed and new books on the second coming with different names are being published.

Lindsey certainly made some mistakes, and his personal life was messy. The obituary that appeared in the Religion News Service, for instance, (entitled “The late great Hal Lindsey”), included this:

Lindsey offered a rough date for the Rapture based on Jesus’ promise that when certain signs appeared the “generation” that witnessed them would not “pass till all these things be fulfilled” (Matthew 24:33-34). The “rebirth of Israel,” the evangelist informed readers, marked the fulfillment of this prophecy. “A generation in the Bible,” Lindsey continued, “is something like forty years. If this is a correct deduction, then within forty years or so of 1948, all these things could take place.” Lindsey expected the Rapture to happen by 1988. “Late Great” is still in print and has not been updated or revised, although as Lindsey went through multiple marriages and divorces his author photo and acknowledgments changed accordingly.[1]

Yes, Lindsey had his issues, that is true. But, De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est (speak nothing but good of the dead), as they say, so let us give him this: Lindsey was absolutely correct that Jesus is coming again!

The New York Times obituary contained this: “Mr. Lindsey’s doomsday predictions did not come true, and his prophesies of imminent end-of-the-world events seem less credible with each passing day.”[2] If the writer means some of Lindsey’s specific predictions and theories did not come true, he is right. Some of Lindsey’s particular predictions were wrong and he likely should have shown more restraint! But if the New York Times writer means Lindsey’s belief that Jesus is coming again is no longer credible, then I stand with Lindsey! Jesus is coming again!

Paul now turns his attention to just this truth, and he does so to encourage and to challenge the Thessalonian Christians. The second coming of Jesus matters and it matters a lot!

Jesus is coming again…so do not despair!

First of all, the second coming of Jesus matters because it pushes back against despair! We have hope! The death-destroyer, the one who walked out of the grave, Jesus, is coming back again!

In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul writes:

¹³ 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.

Paul begins by talking about death and grief and hope. “Those who are asleep” refers to those believers who have died. Notice that Paul does not condemn grief. The Bible never does! But he does say that Christians should not “grieve as others do who have no hope.” Christian grief is different than worldly grief. The world grieves like those who have no hope. The world grieves as if there is no God. The church grieves, yes, but with hope. And what is our hope?

¹⁴ For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁵ 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.

This teaching is actually quite clear. “Those who have fallen asleep”—those Christians who die before Jesus returns—go to be with Jesus though their bodily remains are here on the earth. Their souls go to be with Jesus. So, when Jesus returns, the souls of the Christian dead will return with Him. That means that those “who are alive,” still on the earth, when Jesus returns, “will not precede those who have fallen asleep.” The souls of the dead will come with Christ. Then this:

¹⁶ 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.

That is, their bodies will be caught up into the air and transformed. They will receive their resurrected bodies when Christ returns.

¹⁷ 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.

Then those believers on the earth when Jesus returns will also be caught up “to meet the Lord in the air.”

So, Jesus descends with the souls of the departed.

Their bodies are resurrected and transformed.

Then those alive on the earth are likewise caught up in the air and transformed, given a resurrection body.

And what happens then? Some believe that Paul is teaching that we are caught up in the air, transformed, and then make a U-turn back to heaven to await coming again with Jesus. That is, some believe the second coming happens in two stages: (a) Christ comes for His church and, later, (b) Christ comes with His church.

But this is probably not the best reading of these verses. Craig Keener writes, “When paired with a royal ‘coming’…the word for ‘meeting’ in the air normally referred to emissaries from a city going out to meet the dignitary and escort him on his way to their city.”[3] In other words, it is more natural to read this as us meeting Jesus in the clouds, and then coming back with Him to the earth. In other words, the second coming is one downward movement.

Regardless of how you understand this, Jesus is coming again, and we are caught up to Him. And why does this matter?

¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Prophecy should not lead us to speculation and argument. It should lead us to encouragement.

May I propose this: that the second coming of Jesus become again the grounds of Christian encouragement?

When your brother or sister is hurting, you can say: “Hold on, brother! Hold on, sister! Jesus will come again!”

When someone is scared: “Fear not! Christ the King will return!”

When the Christian is tempted to grieve to the point of despair, we can say, “Do not despair! Jesus the King is coming again with all those who have gone on before! You will see them…and Him…again!”

After the passing of her husband, Karen Still wrote:

There was a moment, in the aftermath of my husband’s premature death, when I thought about Jesus coming back and longed for his return with an urgency I had never before experienced. I always knew we were supposed to long for the return of our king—a kind of obligation of anticipation. But I confess I had previously liked my life too much.

But now, I wanted him to stop all the delays…[4]

And what of suffering injustice? What of being the victim of abuse? What of being the victim of a crime or of crimes? What of watching a loved one suffer horribly at the hands of some malicious person or entity? How does the second coming of Jesus keep us from despairing at the injustice of the world?

To these, the second coming reminds us that while Jesus first came lowly in the manger, He will return in unveiled power and mete out justice upon the earth in His second coming. There is a beautiful and powerful image that one of the designers of Christianity Today put above one of their articles a couple of years ago. It is a silhouette of the baby Jesus in the manger. His right hand is extended above the hay in the manger. There is something in the baby’s hand. What is it? It is a judge’s gavel.[5]

I had never seen such an image before. It catches the attention, no? And what is the point? That the Jesus who comes lowly will one day come as the just Judge of all creation. Justice will be established. All wrongs will be set to right.

Jesus is coming again…so live with your eyes wide open!

And then there is the challenge of the second coming of Jesus. Paul continues his consideration of this in 1 Thessalonians 5. We begin with some fairly ominous verses.

¹ Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. ² For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. ³ 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.

For the world, the second coming of Jesus is bad news! Jesus will return “like a thief in the night.” In other words, it will catch the lost world completely unaware. When Jesus returns, the world will feel safe and secure, as if no danger at all could come upon them! They will be saying, “There is peace and security.” “Then,” Jesus says, “sudden destruction will come upon them…and they will not escape.”

How devastating! How frightening! My goodness! The coming of Jesus will be devastating for the lost, for those who have rejected Jesus! Yet, in verse 4, this is contrasted with the church. Listen:

⁴ But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. ⁵ For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.

We are “children of light, children of the day”! We live with our eyes open! We are not caught off guard, unaware! We know our King is coming again! We expect it! No, we do not know exactly when, but He does not come to us like a thief in the night but like our long-expected brother in the day! What does this mean for us?

⁶ So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. ⁷ For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. ⁸ 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. ⁹ For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁰ who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. ¹¹ Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

Here is how the second coming should shape the kind of people Christians are today.

• We are to be an awake people.
• We are to be a sober people.
• We are to be a people of faith.
• We are to be a people of love.
• We are to be a people of hope.
• We are to be a people who do not fear the return of our Savior.
• We are to be a people who live with Jesus.
• We are to be a people who encourage one another.
• We are to be a people who build one another up.

Church, Jesus is light! Keep your eyes open! Do not sleepwalk through this world! You know how the story ends. You know the author. You are not in the dark about the conclusion!

Let us not sleep! Let us not be in the dark! Let us not suffer under a self-imposed ignorance! We know our King is coming again! We know that we have hope! We know we need not despair! We know that history and reality have a purpose! We know there is a finish line to the human story! We know who wins! We know what is at stake! We know the way home! We know the trumpet will sound! We know that Jesus comes on clouds of glory!

Church, we know our Savior returns! Keep your eyes open! Keep your head up! Keep your heart strong! Keep your faith focused! Don’t slumber! Don’t sleep! Don’t fall!

 

[1] https://religionnews.com/2024/12/05/the-late-great-hal-lindsey/

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/30/books/hal-lindsey-dead.html

[3] Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. (IVP Bible Background Commentary Set) (p. 589). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

[4] https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/11/when-you-are-ready-jesus-return-priorities-haggai-advent/

[5] https://www.christianitytoday.com/2022/12/advent-christmas-come-long-expected-judgment/