Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20110424.htm
EASTER SUNDAY INTERLUDE The Solution Of Christ's Resurrection For The Believer's Destiny Fears (1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

Many people this Easter Sunday, including many Christians, fear for their future destiny, and the reasons are many and varied:

(1) First, news reports from even this last week recall times that the prophecies the book of Revelation predicts about the end times:

(a) In the April 18, 2011 issue of the Waterbury Republican-American, news of "wildfires threatening communities across Texas" (p. 3A) and of the report of "(m)ore than 240 tornadoes" in the South that killed 45 people (p. 1A, 3A) recall the extensive physical disasters that will afflict humanity as predicted in Revelation.

(b) Page 3A of the paper told how Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Congress will raise the government's borrowing limit "to prevent an unprecedented default on the nation's debt," an ominous idea recalling the livelihood hardships forecast in Revelation!

(c) Then there was the civil unrest in Libya (p. 4A), Syria (p. 2A) and Yemen (Ibid.), symptoms of the "seething political movement inspired by revolutions across the Arab world" that reminds us of the prediction of worldwide warfare in the book of Revelation!

(2) Accordingly, one believer I know reports a web site has sprung up predicting a huge national economic collapse, and believers routinely express the temptation they face to worry over current events:

(a) In the last few years, we have heard of nationwide religious movements like the New Apostolic Reformation and Emerging Church Movement (Mark Dinsmore, "Apostolic' Apostasies Attract," The Berean Call, March 2008, p. 8) and local believers who take the Posttribulational view of prophecy where the Church must gain control of the world and reform it so Christ can return to earth. This view leaves the Church going through the Great Tribulation and facing the antichrist, a deep concern to many believers.

(b) Last Sunday, a believer told me of a party they know that holds to this Posttribulational view that the Church will be taken to heaven in the rapture at the end of the seven-year Great Tribulation, and that this one also thinks one can lose his salvation! Actually, these two beliefs are easily intertwined if one interprets Matthew 24 from a certain perspective, and we will explain this in our sermon conclusion!



So, this EASTER Sunday, we ask, "In view of the fear of one's destiny even many Christians face, what would GOD say?!"

Need: "In view of the concerns many people and even Christians have about the future, does God have a directive for us this Easter?"


1. Much like today, 1 Thessalonians addressed the needs of believers who were uninformed and thus concerned for their future destiny:
1. Paul's ministry at Thessalonica was cut short when persecution led new converts to urge him to leave their city, Acts 17:1-10.
2. As a result, these new converts who lacked access to Paul's Scripture knowledge battled with trials of confusion and fear over their destiny:
1. Some believers had started to die, so survivors feared the death of such believers would make them miss the Kingdom, 1 Thess. 4:13.
2. Such persecuted new converts lacking sufficient insight in Bible prophecy could easily think they might face the antichrist, keeping them from living a settled, godly life, cf. 2 Thess. 2:1-2, 15-17.
2. Thus, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11 offered comfort and direction for both these first century Christians and for us believers in our era:
1. Based on the Easter truth about the death and bodily resurrection of Christ, Paul wrote that SINCE we Christians believe that Jesus died and bodily rose again, even so the souls of deceased Christians will Christ bring with Him at the "rapture" of the Church so that they will be bodily resurrected and taken up to heaven with US, 1 Thess. 4:13-17; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to 1 Thessalonians 4:14.
2. The reason Christ's death and resurrection form the BASIS of this hope is that, due to the believer's identification with Christ in His death and resurrection, Christ IS the believer's life, Colossians 3:4: since Jesus bodily arose, we believers in Him must also bodily arise or be bodily changed into the likeness of His glorious body, 1 Jn. 3:2!
3. Great divine blessings then flow from these truths, 1 Thess. 4:13-5:11:
1. First, we are comforted at the hope of the rapture that will raise deceased Christians and translate living believers to live in Christ's blessed Messianic Kingdom at the start of that Kingdom age, 1 Thessalonians 4:18, 13-17; Ibid., ftn. to 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.
2. Second, we are comforted that the rapture does not come after the Great Tribulation as in Posttribulationism, but before it begins, for 1 Thessalonians 5:1-5, 11 teaches the Pretribulational rapture:
1. After revealing the rapture doctrine in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Paul immediately added that his Christian readers had no need for him to write of the "times and the seasons" or the "day of the Lord," that era "referred to by many Old Testament prophets" of end time events, Bible Know. Com., N. T., p. 705.
2. Those events will overtake only the lost world, the realm of "darkness" of which Christians are not a part , 1 Thess. 5:1-5.
3. Since the only logical way that era will not overtake even living Christians who will be raptured is for all Christians to have been raptured out of the world BEFORE the Great Tribulation starts, Paul indicated the rapture of the Church was PREtribulational!
3. Third, we are comforted that the rapture is not in the middle of the 7-year Great Tribulation as some say, but before any of God's wrath expression starts, 1 Thess. 5:9, 10-11; Rev. 6:1-17; 13:1-10:
1. Paul explained that the Christian has not been appointed to face God's wrath (1 Thess. 5:9a), for Christ faced it for him when He died in his place on the cross, 1 Thess. 1:10; Romans 8:1.
2. As God expresses His wrath starting with the removal of the Holy Spirit's restraining work through the rapture of the Church so the antichrist can be revealed (2 Thess. 2:6-12; Dan. 9:27a,b), the rapture is not MIDtribulational, but PREtribulational!
4. Fourth, we are comforted that the rapture is not PARTIAL, the idea that only godly believers go to heaven, 1 Thess. 5:5-8, 10-11:
1. Though 1 Thessalonians 5:10 claims Christ died that "whether we wake or sleep" we should live together with him, verses 6-8 show this phrase does not mean "whether we physically live or die", but "whether we live uprightly or sinfully." (Ibid., p. 707)
2. Thus, godly and ungodly believers alike will be raptured, so the rapture is not PARTIAL, but a rapture of ALL believers!
5. Fifth, we are comforted that since even faithless believers will be raptured, they have unconditional salvation security, 1 Thess. 5:9-11: if God will rapture believers who fail to maintain a vibrant faith in God (see 1 Thess. 5:6-7, 8a), then even a lapse of faith can not cause one to lose his salvation, so the PREtribulational rapture of all believers implies unconditional salvation security , Jn. 5:24!
4. Accordingly, we are obliged to live uprightly, to live by faith in God, to love one another and to hope in the FULLY PREtribulational and UNCONDITIONAL rapture of ALL believers, 1 Thess. 5:8!

Application: May we (1) trust in Christ to receive eternal life, John 3:16. (2) Then, this Easter Sunday, may we live by faith in God, may we love one another and may we hope in our blessed destiny!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

We noted in our introduction how adopting a certain view of Matthew 24 can lead one to believe the Church will be raptured at the end of the Tribulation, the Posttribulation view, as well as the belief that one can lose his salvation. We now clarify and comment on this:

First, Posttribulationism grows out of a series of denials -- (1) a denial of dispensationalism (that God has arranged different eras for different sets of believers in history), (2) a denial of the distinction between Israel and the Church, (3) a denial of Scripture's purpose for the Great Tribulation, (4) a denial of all the Bible's distinctions between the rapture and Christ's Second Coming to earth, (5) a denial of the imminent rapture and (6) a denial of any future fulfillment for Daniel 9:24-27 [where verse 27 has yet to be fulfilled]. (J. Dwight Pentecost, Things To Come, 1972, p. 164-165)

Building on these denials, the Posttribulationist then (7) sees Matthew 13, Matthew 24-25 and Revelation 4-19 as speaking of the Church, NOT Israel. (Ibid.) Thus, in making this presumption, as he reads in Matthew 24:13 that only those who endure to the end will be saved, and in Matthew 24:41 that two women will be grinding at the mill with one being "taken" and the other left, he concludes that the CHRISTIAN must stay godly in the Great Tribulation Period to be raptured ("taken") at its end or he will end up going to hell!

However, Ephesians 3:1-7 shows the Church was "hidden" from man in Jesus' earthly life as He taught Matthew 13 and Matthew 24-25, and Romans 11: 25-27 explains God will return to work with Israel in these passages and in Revelation 4-19 after the Church is raptured. Thus, this "hidden" Church era was revealed ONLY in our Church age. As we understand these facts, we see the Bible teaches the dispensational, Pretribulational view. Matthew 24:13 then teaches God rewards POST-Church believers in the Great Tribulation Period with PHYSICAL salvation so they can PHYSICALLY enter Christ's Kingdom (Rev. 20:4), and the woman "taken" at the mill in Matthew 24:41 is NOT the one who is RAPTURED, but the UNBELIEVER who is sent to hell! (Ibid., Bible Know. Com., N. T., p. 77, 79)

May we rejoice this Easter Sunday that the consistent way of interpreting Scripture clarifies the Pretribulational rapture of all the Church and unconditional salvation security! Then, may we live godly lives grateful for God's grace and for His blessed destiny for us!