FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Pastor’s Note: The following excerpt is a continuation from the article I posted last week. Like the Apostle Paul told the Thessalonians, we SHOULD be comforting one another with the Scriptural prophecies that have been given us in God’s written word. Put your trust in the eternal word!

As with any of these articles that are not mine, the credit is listed at the end of the excerpted article and all rights are reserved to the author and publisher.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-21, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.” KNJV (Bold emphasis, added).

The Rapture Has a Comforting Influence on Sorrowing Hearts

Every person has faced or will face the grief of losing a close friend or loved one in death. When death strikes, pious platitudes do little to bring lasting comfort to friends and family. The only real, lasting comfort is the hope that we will see that person again in heaven. God’s Word tells us with certainty that we are not to sorrow as people who have no hope because we will be reunited with our saved loved ones and friends at the Rapture.

Dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died.

We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. So encourage each other with these words. – 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 (NLT).

The Rapture and Resurrection should transform the way we view death. Death has lost its sting. God has promised that death will ultimately be abolished and that life will reign. Grief is still appropriate when our friends or loved ones die. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35). Stephen’s friends wept loudly over his battered body (Acts 8:2). We miss our loved ones when they die. As Tennyson put so beautifully, “O for the touch of a vanished hand / And the sound of a voice that is still.” However, the Bible declares that our weeping is not the weeping of despair. There is deep solace, hope, and comfort for our sorrowing hearts in the truth of God’s Word about the future for His children.^[1]

^[1] Mark Hitchcock, The End: Everything You’ll Want to Know about the Apocalypse (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2012), 200.
*Where noted, Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
**Where noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
***Where noted, Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved.