Before we turn to our text tonight,
I want to welcome those of you who are visiting with us. We're
always happy to have visitors, and especially those from church
in Medellin, Yucatan, Church. Brother Eduardo and his wife,
we're happy to have you with us this evening. Bienvenidos. Bienvenidos. Okay, and you too
if you're visiting tonight. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. We're
going to continue tonight. We've come to verse 13 in this
chapter. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and
beginning with verse 13. But I would not have you to be
ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you
sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe
that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep
in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you
by the word of the Lord. that we which are alive and remain
unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and
with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds meet the Lord
in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore,
comfort one another with these words." We recognize, of course,
that these verses speak to us concerning the second coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ, a most precious truth which is revealed
to us in the Word of God, that just as He came the first time,
so He shall come a second time. And these particular words are
words to comfort God's people. You notice in verse 18 the apostle
said, wherefore comfort one another with these words. But they're
words of comfort which especially concern the brethren, brethren
which sleep in the Lord. Now God revealed through the
psalmist in the Old Dispensation, the Old Testament, the truth
concerning the resurrection And he revealed in Psalms, precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. But in this
new dispensation, that is the New Testament, this is more clearly
revealed to us by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
truth concerning the resurrection of believers is more openly declared
unto us and through the apostles of our Lord as well. In fact,
you notice the apostles said, for this we say unto you by the
word of the Lord. Verse 15. Now, I have three parts to the
message. First, I want us to say that
the lack of knowledge the lack of knowledge on the part of the
believers in the church at Thessalonica. Paul was writing to correct. He said, I would not have you
to be ignorant. Now the opposite of ignorance,
of course, is knowledge. And Paul desired by his writing
this letter these words to instruct them, to teach them. In Proverbs
chapter 19 in verse 2, we read also that the soul be without
knowledge is not good. And we certainly know that's
true, that the soul, that man, be without knowledge, be without
the knowledge of Christ, be without the knowledge of how God saves
sinners. It's not good. And yet we know
that many thousands, yea, millions of people come into this world
and live and die. without the knowledge of God,
the truth about God. There was a part, a part of what
we call the Christian doctrine that Paul knew would be a great
comfort to the believers in this church should they know it. And so he writes to teach them,
a great comfort to them. And I think it's important that
we see in verse 13 that Paul Remember, now he's writing to
believers. He's writing to believers about
believers. That's important to say. He's
not writing to unbelievers, and he's not writing to believers
about unbelievers. He's writing to believers about
believers. And he mentions the fact, for
if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and every believer,
no one is a child of God, no one knows God who does not believe
that, that Jesus died. That's the heart of the gospel,
isn't it? How that Christ died for our
sins according to the scriptures and was buried and was raised
according to the scriptures. Paul told the church at Corinth,
that this is the truth of the gospel by which they were saved.
But they were ignorant on this particular truth. And doesn't that teach us all
that none of us know all the truth? That as long as we are
in this world, there are some things that are critical. There are some things that a
person must know. to be saved. But there are some
things that are revealed to us in the word of God that a person
might be ignorant of. And he's writing, he says, for
I would not have you to be ignorant. Thank God, if you turn with me
to Romans chapter 10, thank God these people were not ignorant
concerning the righteousness of God. Paul had his countrymen, that
is, other Jews, men of his nationality, who he had such a burden for,
such a concern for. In Romans 10, he begins, brethren,
my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they
might be saved. He wasn't concerned and have
a heavy burden that they be religious. They were religious. In fact,
they were very religious. You know, if that's all that
was required to be religious, almost all the world would be
saved. But that's not it. He said, my
heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might
be saved. For I bear them record that they
have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. Now notice what
they were ignorant of, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness. Now the Jews, I don't think they
were ignorant of the essential righteousness of God. They knew
that the God who had revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, that he was holy. They knew that when the Lord
appeared to Moses in that bush that burned that he proclaimed
his holiness when he said, take off your sandals. Well, this
is holy ground. Why was it holy? Because the
Lord was there. And surely they were knowledgeable
that Isaiah, in the year the king Uzziah died, he saw the
Lord high and lifted up. And he heard, or they knew that
Isaiah heard the seraphim scrying one to the other, holy, holy,
holy. is the Lord our God. They were
not ignorant of the essential righteousness of God, but they
were ignorant of the righteousness of God that is revealed in the
gospel. And that's the reason he says
they're going about to establish their own righteousness. What
does that mean? They're going about to save themselves. I just
boiled it all down. That's what it means. They're
going about to save themselves by their works, by their works. They're ignorant of the righteousness
of God. They're ignorant of the fact
that man cannot satisfy God, not fallen man. He cannot satisfy
God. I know they had the scripture
in the book of Leviticus, which told them, God said, it shall
be perfect to be accepted. In other words, when you bring
an animal to offer as a sacrifice, it shall be perfect to be accepted. Don't you bring a blind animal,
don't you bring a lame animal, don't you bring a sick animal.
No, as best you can determine, you bring an animal that is whole,
whole, W-H-O-L-E, that's whole. And that's what God demanded. He's not going to accept an animal
that's not perfect. And he's sure not going to accept
a sacrifice for sins that is not perfect. And that sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's what he's speaking about when
he talks about the righteousness of God. God's law requires the
perfect obedience, the perfect obedience of loving God with
all our heart and our mind and our strength and loving our neighbor
as ourself. When Adam was first created,
he did obey God's law. He could and he did obey God's
law. But once he disobeyed, he lost
that ability. And as our representative, we
and Adam, we come into this world and we're not able to obey God
fully. But notice what he said in verse
four, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. Now
that word end, it looks like a word from which we get the
word telescope. The goal, the goal of the law. Christ is the goal of the law,
the end of the law. In other words, the law was never
given to Israel. For them somehow to to satisfy
God, but the law was given to point us to Christ, to show us
that Christ, he's the one who obeyed God's law perfectly and
established a perfect righteousness. It's called the righteousness
of God. I wrote this down. I read this,
I think, sometimes in the past, I liked it a lot. It's called
the righteousness of God. God ordained it, first of all. That's the first reason it's
called the righteousness of God, because God ordained it. And because God in flesh performed
it. And because God accepts it. The
righteousness of God. They're ignorant of the righteousness
of God and going about to establish their own righteousness, they
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
How does a person submit himself to the righteousness of God?
By faith. By faith. Look on down there
in Romans 10 and verse 6. But the righteousness which is
the faith speaketh on this wise, say not in thine heart, who shall
ascend into heaven? That is to bring Christ down
from above. He's already come down from above.
He's already visited his creation. Or who shall descend into the
deep? That is to bring up Christ again
from the dead. He's already come up from the
dead. He's come down from heaven. He obeyed God's perfect law.
He was crucified and slain, buried and raised on the third day. But what is it? What saith it? The word is nigh thee. Don't
you love this? It's in your mouth. The word
of faith that we preach, the gospel, it's in your mouth. It's
nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the
word of faith which we preach. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Believe on Christ. And his perfect
righteousness, which is the righteousness of God, is accounted to you to
be your righteousness, and you are accepted. And we know, if
you look back to chapter four of Romans, the apostle brings
out to the Jewish people to whom he was writing this part, this
has always been the way God's justified sinners, never been
any different. Abraham, how was he justified? By faith. David, the sweet psalmist
of Israel, how was he justified? By faith. There is no other way. What shall we say then that Abraham,
our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if
Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof the glory, but
not before God. For what saith the scripture,
Abraham believed God, And it was counted or imputed unto him
for righteousness. Now, to him that worketh is the
reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. If you could work
and earn your salvation, it wouldn't be by grace. And salvation is
either by works or it's by grace. And it cannot be by a mixture
of the two. It's either one or the other.
And the scripture is very clear. It is by grace. The people here
in the church at Thessalonica, they weren't ignorant of this.
This is something that is essential. But there are some truths that
a person may not understand fully, and there can be different opinions. I heard a preacher one time make
this statement, and I think most preachers probably could say
it too. He said, concerning the Lord's second coming, He said,
I know I've been right once, because I've been all three.
I've been a post-millennialist, I've been a pre-millennialist,
and I've been a non-millennialist. He said, I know I've been right
at least once in my life. And there are some truths. about
the Lord's coming that men can differ on. And good men too,
good men can differ on these things. But the matter here of
their ignorance, as I said, it wasn't on the subject of justification,
how a person is saved, but it had to do with what about believers
who have died? Paul had visited the town of
Thessalonica. God had saved some people, raised
up a church. He had to leave. And in the meantime,
some of those believers had passed away. If you look in 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2, for some reason, it appears that they had understood
that Paul or some of the teachers was teaching that Christ would
come in their lifetime. that Christ was going to be coming
back for them in their lifetime. Look here in 2 Thessalonians
2, verses 1 and 2. Now we beseech you, brethren,
by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together
unto him, that you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled,
neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us, as
at the day of Christ is at hand. They had been led to believe
that Christ's second coming was in their lifetime going to take
place, and now some of their friends, some of their brothers
and sisters in Christ, in the church, had passed away. What
about them? What about them? And their lack
of knowledge, back in our text, their lack of knowledge caused
them to have sorrow. Sure, they were concerned. They
were concerned. They had been led to believe,
evidently, that all believers will still be alive when Christ
returns. And now some of the believers
have passed away. They're gone. I had sorrow for
them. Notice that in verse 13. But I would not that you be to
be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you
sorrow not. even as others which have no
hope. Once again, we see Paul's negative
and we see his positive. Paul is not saying, this is his
negative, he's not saying that believers should not sorrow at
the death of a loved one, of a believer. He's not saying that. For a person not to sorrow when
someone that you love has been taken away, has left this world,
would be not natural. It would be without natural affections. Sometimes I think about, well,
I better not go there. I mean, Pat and I, we've been
married for 65 years. One of us is going to leave the
other one. It's just a matter of time. And to think, Even though
we believe that we're going to be with the Lord, it would be
very unnatural for one or the other of us, whoever is left,
not to have sorrow, wouldn't it? That'd be unnatural. Abraham,
the father of the faithful. You know what is recorded about
him when his wife Sarah died? The scripture said, Abraham came
to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. Yes. Abraham was not weeping for Sarah. He was weeping for himself. We
don't weep for the person that has been taken being a child
of God. We don't weep for them. We wouldn't
call them back. Not really. We wouldn't want
them to have to come back here to this world. So his negative, he's not saying
that believers should not sorrow when a loved one passes away,
but his positive is that we should not sorrow as others which have
no hope. Sorrow, yes, but we should not
sorrow as those who have no hope, no good expectation. What is
the hope? What is the expectation of those
of us who trust in Christ? Well, Peter tells us that we
are begotten again, we're born again unto a living hope, a living
hope, a living expectation by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. The resurrection of Christ our
Lord testifies to us of our salvation, which includes, yes, the body
as well as the soul. He redeemed us body and soul. And the soul, we know, at death,
goes to be with the Lord. And in this passage, Paul says,
shall God bring with him. Now if he's going to bring departed
saints with him, that means they are with him now. Our separation from loved ones
is just for a short time. We realize that. And then we'll
meet again. And we'll meet again, never to
be parted. It would be difficult not to
sorrow, but at the same time, as I said, we would not wish
that person, that one that we loved, child of God, to be back
in this sinful world. There's a scripture in Isaiah
57, which says, at death, the righteous is taken away from
the evil to come. Well, here's the second part
of my message. The truth about the Lord's coming
as it is related to His people. Now remember I said He's writing
to believers about believers. He's not writing to believers
about unbelievers. His second coming here relates
to, or rather His second coming relates to all people, lost and
saved. But Paul's writing here about
his second coming in relation to believers? And consider these
questions. What will it be like? What will
it be like in this world when he comes again? Well, look at
Luke chapter 17. Very familiar passage to all
of us, but we know, and I don't think this passage really is
talking about what it's going to be like especially, but how
it's going to be when the Lord comes again. In Luke 17 in verse
26, and as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also
in the days of the Son of Man. They did eat, they drank, they
married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that
Noah entered into the ark and the flood came and destroyed
them all. Likewise also as it was in the
days of Lot, they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold,
they planted, they built, but the same day that Lot went out
of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed
them all. What will it be like? It will
be a very sudden thing. A very sudden thing. Everything's
going on, it seems to me, as normal until God called Noah
into the ark and closed the door until the angels brought Lot
out of Sodom. Everything was going on pretty
much as normal. But just as soon as those two
things happened, destruction fell. And that brings us to this. Will his coming be sudden? We
know that it will because Paul in 1 Corinthians tells us that
it will take place or what will take place that is coming will
be in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. I don't know if you
could even measure that. The time, the twinkling of an
eye. Can that even be measured? He
said, the Lord Jesus in Matthew 24 said it's going to be like
the lightning that flashes across the sky. That's fast, isn't it? You hear the thunder, you see
the light go across very fast. Well, will there be an order
at His coming? Absolutely. God is a God of order. We know that. You see that in
His creation. All creation testifies to the
fact that God is a God of order. He's not the author of confusion. And most certainly there will
be an order at his coming. In fact, the apostle tells us
here in this text that the voice of the archangel, and then the
trump of God, and then the dead in Christ shall rise first. Will those believers who are
alive, and this is the point Paul is making, will those believers
who are alive when the Lord comes Will they prevent? Now that's
a word that's changed its meaning. Will they prevent? It really
means precede. Will they have any preference?
Will believers who are alive when Christ comes, will they
have any preference over believers who have gone to be with the
Lord? No. Because they will come with
Christ and their bodies will be raised and instantaneously
at the same time, Those believers who are alive, their bodies shall
be changed so that all, all the members of Christ's spiritual
body will be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord
in the air. What will the resurrected body
be like? Well, it will be a spiritual
body. It'll be a spiritual body. Body fashioned like unto Christ's
glorious body. This is what the scripture says.
We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we
shall see him as he is. It's mysterious, no doubt, when
we read about Christ and how he showed himself to his disciples. The body he was in, a spiritual
body, it's mysterious, but there is a Natural body, Paul says,
and there's a spiritual body. You say, how can a body be spiritual?
God makes it that way. That's all I can say. Spiritual body. I want to close. If you look over in 2 Timothy,
chapter 4, a few pages over. 2 Timothy, chapter 4. And verse six. For I am now ready to be offered,
and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good
fight. I have finished my course. I
have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for
me a crown of righteousness. You say, what is that crown?
That's everlasting life. There's laid up for me a crown
of righteousness, everlasting life, which the Lord, the righteous
judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but
unto all them also that love his appearing. How do we answer that? Do we
love his appearing? We think about the truth that
the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come again. Do we love that? Do we love His appearance? I
read years ago something that helped me to answer
that question. Do we love His first appearance?
Do we? Do we love His first appearance?
that in the fullness of the time God sent forth His Son, made
of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem us from
the curse of the law. Do we love the fact of His first
coming? Amen. I love that fact. I love that truth. That's all
my hope. If you love His first coming,
then you love His second coming. Amen? Amen. He's all our salvation, all our
righteousness, all our sanctification, and all our glorification. May
the Lord bless these thoughts to us here tonight.