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LSB  1 Thess. 4:13 - 18  

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain 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 shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words. .

I watched a Library of Congress movie clip made over a century ago of a man who takes a mail bag and attaches it up on a platform with a device that holds it out in the air.  It has breakaway clips of some kind both top and bottom. A steam locomotive appears coming at speed.  The locomotive passes by the bag but the mail car has a device that intercepts that bag and breaks it away from the clips that were holding it and safely snatches it into the inside of the mail car.

You say that's very entertaining, but what does that have to do with our passage this morning about the rapture?  Well I'm trying to get you to think about an event where something is snatched away instantaneously.  A train moving at 50 miles per hour and a bag that was stationary that accerates to the speed of the moving train instantly as it is caught and pulled inside.

I'm going to begin this morning by working with the idea behind the words tranlated we who are alive and remain will be caught up together

we will be caught up.  Like the bag in the clips that was locked to a place on earth and is suddenly scooped inside a moving train, accelerated from zero to whatever the speed of the train is instantly, caught up.  Snatched is a good word.  There and in an instant, not there, somewhere else.  Caught up.  Snatched away.

The greek word translated caught up is harpazó.  And I want to take you to several other places in the new testament where it is used so that you can form a good idea of it's intent in our most important verse this morning.

An important method of study of words for interpretation purposes is to find the same word in other places in the Bible and compare it's use to get a better idea of how the original folks used a particular word.

In Matthew 11:12 Jesus says;
“And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.

A word for word translation goes something like this:  From then the days of John the     Baptist until now the kingdom of the heavens is taken by violence and the violent claim it.

The same idea in a totally different context.  Something is taken by force and a new claim is held over it by it's takers.  Seized upon and snatched away by force.

In Matthew 12:29 Jesus says this;
“Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.

Harpazo is used twice in that verse.  Carry off his property, and plunder are both from that same root.  Used of a thief carrying away something by force.  Removing something and taking it away.  Snatching property by force.

In Matthew 13:19 Jesus in the parable of the sower.  We're very familiar with this story;  When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.

The seed sown on the pavement like hard soil gets snatched away by birds, right.  That's our same word harpazo.  the evil one comes and snatches away   There one minute, gone the next.  Snatched away.  Harpazo.

In John 6:15 the people were about to seize Jesus by force and make Him be king.  It says:  Jesus therefore perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force, to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.

Take Him by force.  Harpazo.  They were going to kidnap Jesus.  Steal Jesus.  Seize Him by force.  Snatch Jesus away.  

You get the idea, right.  In a very sad event that lasted for centuries, black peoples near the coasts of Africa were harpazo.  Stolen.  Snatched away and taken on ships to be slaves in other places.  Man stealing.  Which leads us to our word, rapture.  Where did that come from.  Why do we call this event the rapture?  How did that word use evolve from harpazo, catching away, snatching away.

People who don't like our doctrine of the pre-tribulation Pre-millenial rapture will argue that the word rapture never appears in the Bible.  We just made that up.  It's a non-thing we've concocted.  Have you heard those arguments.

If you dig a little you find that the old english usage of the word rapt is to be carried away.  We most often think of enrapturement as someone who is emotionally carried away by music or perhaps a story.  Our emotions carry us away.  

But the old usage was much more physical.  Our word rape comes from the old english use of rapt.  Same roots.  Someone steals someone and physically carries them away.  So the etymology of the old english use of the word rapture is actually what all the verses about harpazo we looked at physically picture.  

The english word comes from the latin word rapere which means taken by force.  Stolen away.  Snatched away.  So our word rapture actually comes from a latin translation of harpazo.  To be snatched away.

Something or someone taken by force.  Removed.  Snatched away.  Except in a very real sense, our verse this morning speaks of God snatching away from this earth, those who He rightly owns, to be taken to the next world, with Jesus.  We will be rapt in the very physical sense of the old english word.  Caught up and carried away.  Snatched away by force.  In the very best sense.

That's our introduction, now then let's pick it up in verse 13.  

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.

Our tip off that this is a new section a different discussion from the previous verses is Paul's words,  But we do not want you to be uninformed

He uses that phrase quite often to shift gears and talk about something new, something different from the previous context.  This is a new section of teaching.  And Paul has a ministry of teaching his children in the faith.  That's what he does.  

Previously and again after this, Paul often says to them, but you all know, but you all know.  Here he approaches something they do not know.  This is new information for them.  Truths they need to know.  So he says;

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers . . .
Brothers.  That term of endearment includes all peoples of both genders who are regenerated Holy Spirit indwelt believers.  Sisters, mothers, fathers, children, everyone who believes in and belongs to Jesus is Paul's brother - sister - father - mother - child, all included in the word brother's.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep,

Right from the start, the christian term for those who have died has been asleep.  It doesn't refer to some sort of soul sleep.  Because the same Paul says absent from the body, what?  Present with the Lord. 2Cor. 5:8  He doesn't here teach soul sleep.  

It's just nicer to think of the departed as sleeping than to refer to them as de-composing corpses.  koy-mah'-o was the ordinary term for what we do most nights for a few hours.  Sleep.  But christians began to use it of those who had died.  

Again, word etymology, the study of word histories, we get our word cemetary from the greek koy-mah'-o.  Christian influence caused the burial place name to be considered a sleeping place.  A cemetary is a sleeping place.  Christians did that.  And if you're christian your soul is instantly with Jesus after death and your body is sleeping, waiting for the day when the shout of Jesus opens the graves of christians and they awake.

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.

The reason Paul takes time to expand on what happens to christians who die before Jesus returns is because the Thessalonians had an incomplete understanding, and because they were literally waiting for Jesus to return from heaven in their lifetimes, just as we do, just as we also wait, they were grieving those who missed it.  

Some had died and the Thessalonian christians grieved that their loved ones somehow missed out on Jesus returning to take them to their new homes in heaven.

Before Paul wrote the words we're studying this morning, all we had about what's next for christians was what Jesus told the apostles the night before His death.  The apostles were grieved and upset because they finally had accepted that Jesus was going and they were staying and that separation from Jesus made them anxious and sad.  Grieved, troubled.  They couldn't imagine a life without Jesus being with them.  In John 14 He says;

1 “Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

Paul had taught them this doctrine.  Jesus is returning to receive His called out ones, and He will transport them to heaven to their new homes in His Father's house.

That was what they knew and believed but in their minds it only worked if you were alive when He gets here.  They were waiting for Him to come.  Literally.  And that's right.  If we are not like them physically waiting every day in anticipation that Jesus could come TODAY, we've slipped.  That truth is still just as valid today as it has ever been.

But they had no exception clause for those who died.  They figured that their loved ones who had died missed it.  Gone.  Hopeless.  Without hope the verse says.  And they were grieving over that.  So Paul expands the doctrine that Jesus gave the disciples and explains how it encompasses not only just those who are alive and remain, but also all who have died IN Christ.

14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

This concept is probably impossible for our minds to fully grasp and understand.  OK, there is faith involved here.  We don't have all the answers because we're trying to understand things that are beyond our physical understanding of time and space and matter.  Physical being.

Paul says, absent from the body, present with the Lord.  Somehow when my spirit, my soul departs this body, this shell, if I'm a christian, that's why he prefaces with;  if we believe that Jesus died and rose again  That's the definition of a christian.  And if that's the case, when I die, my spirit departs this body and is with Christ in heaven.  

We fall asleep IN Jesus.  My spirit departs and goes to be with Jesus, in Jesus, in heaven.  But Paul explains when Christ physically returns to meet us in the air, all those who have died in Christ will return with Him.  even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus

Fallen asleep.  In Jesus.  With Jesus.  And Jesus will bring with Him all those who have fallen asleep who are with Him and somehow In Him.  If you can't get your mind around that, don't worry.  I can't either.  I love it that the God of the Bible is too infinite for my finite mind to fully understand.  

15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord,

OK, stop right there for a moment.  Paul says I have previously never before revealed information from Jesus, the Lord.  This is new revelation.  Given to Paul, by Jesus.  Revelation that expands upon what Jesus said to the apostles in John 14.  New revelation.

In 1 Cor. 15, talking about this same new revelation Paul says;
51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

A mystery, in the Bible, is new revelation.  Something that previous generations of believers, Old Testament and New, did not know because it wasn't yet revealed by God.  A mystery is new revelation, from God.  

By the way, it's important to add something here.  When God was finished with His revelation, when the canon of scripture was finished, there is no new revelation beyond this book.  When the book of Revelation finishes with the warning that anyone who adds to it will have the  plagues therein added to them, and who subtracts from it, God will take away his part in the Holy City and the tree of life, that means it's finished.  No new revelation.  Nothing previously revealed, removed.  It is finished.  It is complete.

Both happen every day.  LGBTQ+++ people are trying to remove the curses of abomination in Leviticus.  And sex crazed mad men like the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints prophet are getting new revelation every day that says it's OK to rape 12 year olds.

Every kind of aberation possible by taking away from the book and adding new revelation to the book.  NO!  The canon is closed.  There is NO new revelation.  God isn't telling you it's OK to preach if you're a woman.  You didn't hear that from God.  You might have heard it, but it wasn't from God.

Paul was a full apostle and he DID in fact get new revelation which is included in the canon of scriptures for us.  We wouldn't know from John 14, what Jesus told us about Him coming to receive us and take us to our home in heaven, we wouldn't know from that what Paul is telling us here.  This is new revelation and Paul tells us the source.  From the Word of the Lord.  Paul got this revelation from Jesus.  It expands and clarifies what Jesus told the apostles on that night before His death.  Brand new, previously not known.

This is a good place to consider our parallel passage from 1 Cor. 15.  There Paul is answering a slightly different question.  You know Job stated something marvelous, under the inspiration of God.

Job is likely the oldest account in the Bible.  He was a patriarch, like Abraham.  Listen to what Job said long long ago,  Job 19:
25 But I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth. 26 Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. 27 I will see Him for myself; my eyes will behold Him, and not as a stranger. How my heart yearns within me!  Job 19:25 - 27

Which perhaps begged the question that Paul answers for the Corinthians in chapter 15.  What will our resurrection bodies be like.  Is this body going to heaven?  Job 19 also could have been enough of an answer for the Thessalonians who grieved over their dead.  

Job knew he would die, he knew his skin would rot, yet he states that he will have eyes to behold God and he will do that physically with some kind of flesh.  

God was gracious to give Paul new expanding revelation about what the Corinthians and Thessalonians were curious about.  He could have just said, go read Job.  He knew he would stand before me with eyes and flesh, there's your answer.  But God graciously answers giving Paul new revelation.

51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. 55 “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.  1 Cor 15:51 - 58

In the twinkling of an eye . . . in the millisecond or microsecond that light can glint in someone's eye, twinkling of an eye, we will be changed from this rotting aging flesh to new bodies, made for eternity, made for heaven.

Same event, slightly different focus.  The Corinthians were trying to understand resurrection.  The Thessalonians were grieving because they thought some that they loved had missed it, they'd died!  Grief because we loved those folks and they missed Jesus coming to take them home.

15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

If you're alive when Jesus comes to snatch His church out of this world and take them to heaven, guess what, in the order of things, the folks who have already died in Christ will actually get there before you do.

Somehow, in some way that we don't fully understand, the dead in Christ are already with Him.  They are In Christ and have been with Him without bodies, somehow, since they died.  Absent from the body, present with the Lord.  

All of the dead in Christ will be with Him when He comes to receive the living christians at the snatching away, the rapture.  And in fact in the order of these events, in this twinkling of an eye. . . ;

16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

The dead in Christ, who have been with Christ, will have resurrection bodies.  And those bodies will rise up out of the graves, and ashes, and the sea, and everywhere else the dead were disposed of, they will have new bodies, resurrection bodies, and they will rise up first, before those of us who are alive when this event happens in space and time.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout . . .  You can believe differently and that's oK, but I choose to believe this shout is what John was transported to and saw in Revelation chapter 4 vs. 1.  

After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.”

What is the "these things"  “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.”  It's the church.  The seven letters to the churches in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation represents the entire church age which we are still in.

I like to believe that those words and trumpet are the rapture of the church.  In Revelation chapter 4, after those words Come Up Here, the church is never again seen or spoken of in the book of Revelation.  Come Up Here is the removal of the church.  The "harpazo" of the church.

It also gives a distinct time line.  Church age.  Rapture, (Come Up Here) and after that event, Revelation gives us a seven year time line of expanding judgements.  In Daniel's 9:24 - 27 prophecy there is exactly seven years of jewish history un-accounted for.  One week of years.  The time of Jacob's trouble.

When the church hears those words, Come Up Here, and the church is removed to heaven, that begins that clock with 7 years left.  The church is a parenthesis, a block of time between the death of Messiah, and the final seven years of jewish history in God's plan for them.

God removes the church and then He begins the judgements that will take us to the end.  Satan will be locked up in prison for a millenium, a thousand years, and Christ will reign, with us, on this earth, for a thousand years of glory.  After that the universes that we see will be uncreated, consumed in atomic fire and gone, and God will create new heavens and a new earth.

16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.    What about us!??  

17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

There's our word we started with.  Harpazo.  Caught up.  Snatched away by force.  Removed by force.

In the twinkling of an eye, you will receive a new glorious body, made for heaven, like Jesus body, who could go through walls into rooms, but He could also eat some fish.  Not a ghost.  Heavenly flesh of some kind.  Certainly better than this wreck of a seventy year old body that I'm in.

The old song says;  This robe of flesh I'll drop, and rise, to seize the everlasting prize, and shout while passing through the air, farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer.  Previous generations of saints understood these things exactly.  This robe of flesh I'll drop, and rise, to seize the everlasting prize.  That prize is eternity with Jesus.  In a new body.

Well, science has reared it's ugly head and intervened in the 20 centuries since Paul wrote those words, hasn't it.  We now understand that our earth is a sphere spinning on an axis, in space, a round spinning rock in vast vast empty space with other spinning balls gazillions of miles away.

We always sort of pictured, I still do whenever we have chamber of commerce puffy white clouds days like yesterday, I think to myself, wouldn't it be nice if Jesus shouted Come Up Here and I rose up into those beautiful clouds and met Him in the air.  Pretty one dimensional.  Of course He'll appear directly above my head and I'll go straight up.

But what about someone on the other side of the earth 180 degrees out from me?  Too bad for them I guess.  Obviously God can call everyone into the clouds from every place on earth at the same instant.  If He can speak the heavens and the earth into existence by His words, ex nihilo, from nothing, it isn't a problem for Him to, by His shout, call all believers, living and dead, unto Himself, in the clouds.  

When MacArthur teaches about Lazarus being raised from the dead in John chapter 11 when He said Lazarus come forth;   he always tells us, if Jesus hadn't specified Lazarus by name, If He had just ordered "come forth" all of the graves would have been emptied.  Such is the power of the Lord.

18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.

The immediate comfort is directed at those who grieved for their loved ones who they thought had missed out on the return of Jesus.  No, they're with the Lord and they will also precede us with resurrection bodies, in the air when He comes.  That was one comfort.

But there is another comfort to consider here.  And it involves where we place the rapture of the church.  Through the years theologians have dis-agreed about when this event happens.  

Does it preceed the tribulation period?  Does it happen in the middle?  Does it not happen until the end of the tribulation at the time of judgment when evil is deposed and judged.  Lots of confusion exists.

We even give it names.  Pre-trib.  Post-trib.  Mid-trib.  Those are short for pre-tribulation rapture,  Post tribulation rapture, or mid way through.  In the era of ignorance that the church exists in today, most so-called christians don't even know what the rapture of the church is.  Ignorance is bliss.  

But let me tell you why I believe that the rapture of the church is the very next event on God's time schedule.

The first reason for me is that word comfort.  Part of our comfort is the promise that the church will be insulated from the tribulation era.  What comfort is available if I'm standing in line to lose my head during the tribulation.  Post trib or mid trib rapture doesn't give me much comfort.

I've already alluded to the fact that on God's revealed times schedule, the church was an unseen mystery.  We are a parenthesis no one saw in those 70 weeks of years foretold to Daniel concerning his people, the jews.  69 weeks of years, 483 years were used up when Jesus walked into Jerusalem and wept over Israel a week before they murdered Him.

One week of years remains to finish everything God laid out for Daniel and specifically for Daniel's people, the jews.  The tribulation week of years, 7 years, is Israel's time.  Not the church's, and thus in my mind it makes perfect sense that those seven years begin when the church age is closed by the church's removal to heaven.

But then, we have other good hints.  Two of them are in Paul's writings to this church.  In chapter one, Paul says something that speaks to our argument.

1Thess1:10 and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.

That seems so clear to me.  Jesus who rescues us from what?  The coming wrath.  Paul seems pretty specific here.  The wrath to come.  I suppose that could mean the great white throne judgement some place else.  Sort of nebulous.  But I take it to mean the wrath of the judgement against this rebellious world that hates God.  I'm thinking bowls of wrath described in Revelation.

Paul taught the Thessalonians that Jesus would rescue us from the wrath to come.  The church's removal to heaven before the tribulation just makes this verse make perfect sense.

Then in 1 Thess. 5:9 Paul again states our argument clearly; For God has not appointed us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

This world has an appointment with wrath.  We believe it's very soon.  The stage has been set for years.  I thought 40 years ago it must be soon.  Everything is staged and ready.  And the world has gotten increasingly more vile every year since then.  

At this point it's like Satan is taunting God.  Dancing around saying "bring it"  We've turned God's promise in the sky to never drown the world with water again, the rainbow, into gay pride?  We've turned the murder of unborn humans made in the image of God into the most important thing?  

We may need to hand out scissors soon so we can all cut Galatians 6:7 out of our Bibles.  That's the verse that says;  God is not mocked.  This culture is shaking it's little fist at God, spitting on the ground, and saying;  Bring it.

One final verse that adds to my argument that the church will be removed before the tribulation era judgements begin.  There are many more but these are sufficient for our time this morning.  Revelation 3, the letter to the church at Philadelphia;

10 Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. 11 I am coming quickly; hold fast what you have, so that no one will take your crown.

The hour of testing which is about to come upon the what?  The whole world.  That hour has never come since those words were spoken to John and written down.  Testing on the whole entire world.  It can only refer to the prophecies written in the rest of this book.

And the promise is to those who have kept the word of perseverance, He will keep them from that hour.  I believe that is a reference to the faithful church.  How faithful?

Well, I also believe that the luke warm church in the following letter that gets spewed out of His mouth, that also happens at the rapture.  Millions of luke warm christians will find out they weren't really christians at all.  Spewed out and left behind.

The comfort of the rapture is for the faithful christians who have loved His appearing.  I pray that everyone in this room will rise up together, on that day, in the clouds, to meet Jesus in the air.

That doctrine is our hope.  We long to be with Jesus, to see Jesus with new eyes in a new body, to meet Him in the air, to be taken up to our new home in heaven, to feast with Him as His bride at the wedding feast prepared for Him and us to enjoy.  

We say with John, the writer of the book of Revelation, Even so, Come Lord Jesus.