THE RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH
Dr. W. A. Criswell
01-12-58
1 Thessalonians 4:13‑14
Now, let us all turn to the 1
Thessalonian letter—all of us, 1 Thessalonians—the 1 Thessalonian letter, the
fourth chapter. We're going to read this great apocalyptic passage—one of
the great eschatological scriptures in the Bible: 1 Thessalonians 4:13 through
18.
We all have it? The first Epistle
of Paul to the church at Thessalonica, the fourth chapter, beginning at the
thirteenth verse. Now, let's all of us read it together:
But I would not have you to be ignorant,
brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye 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 the 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, to meet the Lord in the air; and
so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Wherefore comfort one another with these
words.
I said this morning that I was preparing
four sermons on this passage. The first one was the sermon of hope, “That
Ye Sorrow Not as Others Who Have No Hope.” And, that was the message this
morning. Then, the message tonight on the translation of God’s believing
children, sometimes called ‘the Rapture,’ called that because we shall see our
Lord. We shall be enraptured with His presence, the glory of His
appearing. Then, the third sermon is to be on “The Great Separation”:
These who are caught up to meet the Lord in the air, all of the church, all of
God's believing people—and, the earth without a Christian—“The Great
Separation.” Then, the fourth one: “Forever With The Lord”: “Wherefore
comfort one another with these words”—“Forever with the Lord.”
Now, the sermon tonight is the second
one on the passage: The translation of God's believing children, the rapture of
His church, the immortalization, the transfiguration of God's living and the
resurrection of our beloved dead who sleep in Jesus. This passage is, of
all eschatological passages, somewhat the most meaningful because it
delineates, it discusses—
it
's a further revelation of the most precious of all of the promises of our
Lord. This has never been said before, never been mentioned before except
one time, and that from the lips of our blessed Savior.
So, we're going back now to the life of
our Lord and see how it was that He said that. And, now, Paul avows that
this further revelation came from the same Lord Jesus Himself.
The Old Testament prophets spake of the
coming of our Lord endlessly. Almost the whole substance of their
prophesying was the glory of the Messianic kingdom and the exaltation and
wonder of the Messianic king. From the start of the Old Testament
Scriptures to the last syllable, it is filled with those glorious prophetic
utterances of the coming Lord and Savior and redeemer and triumphant
king. The only thing the Old Testament prophet never saw was this: He
never saw an interval between two appearances of the Messiah. He just saw
one.
There's no exception to that.
There was no Old Testament seer or sage or preacher or prophet who saw other
than that great wonderful vision of the coming king. Sometimes, he'd
describe him as Isaiah did: a man lowly and acquainted with grief, a Lamb of
God, a suffering servant by Whose stripes we are healed.
And, the same prophet in the next voice
would describe the glory and the majesty of that incomparable servant of God
whom he names Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the
Prince of Peace. They put it all together. To them it was one great
prophetic promise and vision.
Now, the disciples were like that.
They never saw in between a great valley of the suffering Lamb of God Who
should come for the sins of the world, Who should die for us, and, then, this
long age called the age of the church, the age of the Spirit, the dispensation
of the Holy Ghost. They never saw that.
And, the disciples, when they heard the
Baptist announce that the Messiah was in their very midst, they were filled
with all of those glorious expectations of the coming king and the
establishment of the house of God among the nations, the exaltation of Judah,
one of them to sit on His right hand and one of them to sit on His left hand,
to lead Israel out from under the bondage and yoke of the Roman government and
to establish forever the kingdom of Israel. They were filled with those
glorious expectations. They were doing nothing but reflecting the Old
Testament Scriptures that they loved and had read all their lives.
Can you imagine, then, the crestfall and
despair that came upon the Lord's disciples when He began to tell them that He
was to be slain, to be killed? It was inconceivable to their minds and
understanding. And, when, actually and finally, the Lord of glory died on
the Cross like a felon, like a criminal, like a malefactor—when finally Jesus
was slain and they looked at Him in death, to them it was the end of the
Messianic hope. There, expired in the death of Jesus, every dream and
every prophetic vision that they had read in the Bible and that they had loved
and entertained in their hearts.
For, you see, they did not realize they
had not come to know that there was first a coming of our Lord in suffering, in
humility, taking upon Him the diseases and the sins and the illnesses and the
infirmities of the people, and dying, atoning redeemer for the
world. Then, some of these days, some glorious triumphant day, some other
day, some farther day, there should be another coming of the Lord in grace and
in triumph and in mighty power, visible, open, establishing a kingdom that
shall abide forever and forever.
In the third chapter of the Book of
Ephesians, Paul describes that great parenthesis that the Old Testament prophet
never saw. He said, “Hid in the councils of God from the beginning of the
world was this mystery,” he calls it.
A
“mystery” in the Bible is a secret known to God and just imparted and shared with
those who are initiated. That's the meaning of the word “mystery” in the
Greek language, the mustērion, the mystery religions. They
had secrets, like in a Masonic lodge, and nobody knew them except they who were
initiated.
So, Paul calls this great parenthesis,
the age in which we now live, that the prophets of the Old Testament never saw,
he calls that a mustērion. It was something hid in the
councils of God that they never saw. And, it was only revealed to the
holy apostles that Christ should die in the first appearing and that the gospel
of the Son of God should be preached to all of the world in this day and in
this age, and that it should consummate, conclude with a glorious and marvelous
personal triumph of Jesus over His enemies, shared in by all of those who place
their trust in Him.
Now, when the Lord made that
announcement to His apostles, they who were filled with all of these visions of
grandeur of the coming king and of the kingdom that should last forever, and
they on His right hand and on His left hand, when He made the announcement to
them that He was to die, they were plunged into uncontrollable, indescribable
grief and despair. And, it is there that Jesus made this first revelation
of something else that was to come to pass.
Listen to Him. I referred a moment
ago to it as being the most precious of all of the promises of our Lord: “Let
not your heart be troubled.” Well, no wonder they were troubled.
Every hope and vision of their life was being snuffed out into crucifixion and
death of their Lord and king.
Let not your heart be troubled...
In My Father's house are many
mansions...
I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you
unto Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
Before the consummation of that kingdom,
before His appearing in glory and in power, the Lord says He's going
away. He's going to heaven, to the Father's house and there build a city
for us. And, someday, He's coming again to receive us and take us to His
Father's house: “That where I am, there you may be also.”
“I will come again”: that is not
death. In death, our spirits, disembodied, go to be with Jesus.
He's coming for us. That's not the destruction of Jerusalem.
“Let not your hearts be troubled.”
I will come again in the destruction of Jerusalem. That's not the
destruction of the Roman Empire. That's not scientific advancement and
the spreading of scientific knowledge in the earth and a thousand other things
that people say that it is.
When He says, “I will come again,” that
is our Lord, living, triumphant Himself. He, our blessed Savior, He is
coming for His own. And, He told the disciples that in the shadow of the
Cross and in the midst of their grieving despair.
Now, that is what Paul is adding to in this
apocalyptic passage that we've just read together: “I will come again.”
And, how shall it be? “This we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that
we who are alive and remain” in this world when that great and glorious and
triumphant day comes, we who are alive and remain, we shall be caught up with
God's sainted and resurrected dead. We shall be caught up with them,
transformed, immortalized, transfigured, translated like Enoch was, walking
with the Lord. And, there, in the presence of God forever, we who are
alive and remain, we shall be caught up with God’s sainted dead to meet the
Lord in the air, when He comes for us.
And, look how Paul describes that: “For
the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven.” And, he uses three phrases
there: en keleusmati; second, en phōnē archaggelou;
third, en salpiggi theou. One, two, third.
“For the Lord himself shall descend from
heaven en keleusmati.” Keleuō is the Greek verb for
“to order, to command.” Keleusma is the Greek word for “the shout,
the order of command.” It is used in Greek to refer to a general giving a
command to his army. It's used in Greek to refer to an admiral addressing
his horseman. It is used in Greek to refer to a charioteer as he drives
his horses: a shout of command, en keleusmati.
“The Lord shall descend from heaven with
a shout.” The Lord shall speak and these dead shall arise
incorruptible. Think of the sovereignty and the power of the commanding,
decreeing, electing, Almighty sovereign God. It's like somebody said when
the Lord Jesus stood at the tomb of Lazarus and said, “Lazarus, come forth”—had
He not used the name “Lazarus,” had He not called him by name, the entire dead
of the entire world would have arisen and come forth to meet the living
Lord.
With a shout, with a shout of command,
God shall speak and these graves shall be emptied. And, these who are
alive and trust in Jesus shall be raptured, translated, transformed in a
moment, in a twinkling of an eye. The Lord shall descend from heaven with
a shout, en keleusmati, a shout of command, “Arise. Arise.
Arise.” And, the dead shall hear the voice of God and live again, with a
shout, with the voice of the archangel, en phōnē archaggelos,
the archangel.
There's only one in the Bible and his
name is Michael. That's one of the strangest revelations there, “that, at
the voice of Michael, the archangel.” I've thought and wondered with “the
voice of the archangel,” with the voice of Michael.
Well, I'll tell you why. That is
the voice of victory and of triumph. For Michael is he that wars against
Satan, and Satan and his angels war against Michael. And ever since that
Garden of Eden, Michael has been the defender of his people and the protector
of Israel. And, in this great and final day, the shout of the archangel,
Michael, is a shout of glory and of triumph—the shout of the archangel, when
Michael raises his voice, and Satan and death are vanquished, with the voice of
the archangel and with the trump of God, en salpiggi theou, and with the
trumpet of God.
Paul described that trumpet in the 1
Corinthian letter and the fifteenth chapter: “This I say, brethren, flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” As long as things are now,
we'll never have the kingdom of God. As long as we're in this body of
sin, we'll never have a new body. Nor shall we ever walk those golden
streets in our impurity and our inequity.
Flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
But I show you a mystery…
a
mustērion—there it is again—a mustērion, a thing hidden
in the heart of God that no man could ever know save by revelation. “I
show you a musterion. We're not all going to sleep.” Some of us are
going to be alive when He comes.
In a moment...
We shall not all sleep. We shall
all be changed,
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall all be changed.
There that same thing is again, as it is
over here: “With the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God, and the
dead in Christ shall rise first,” “Then we shall all be changed.”
Well, what is that “in the moment, in
the twinkling of an eye, the last trump, the last trump?” Well, here's
what he's referring to. In the Roman army, in the marching of those
legionnaires, conquering and all conquering, there were three blastings of the
trumpet. First, when the trumpet sounded in the middle of the night, in
the middle of the day, at any hour, every Roman legionnaire sprang to his feet,
struck his tent. At the sounding of the second trumpet, every legionnaire
stood in line, ready to march. And, at the sounding of the last trump,
away and away and away did they march. That's what he means “the last
trump: Time to march. Time to rise. Rise, shine, all Jerusalem, all
Israel, all church, all people of God, for the glory of thy light is come and
the favor and blessing of the Lord God is upon thee. Arise, shine, put on
thy beautiful garments. My soul, what a day, what a day, at the blowing
of the trumpet of God.
You know, I almost just stopped there and
prepared me a sermon on the blowing of the trumpet of God. Bu,t if I were
to stop and prepare a sermon every time I wanted to, we'd never get through
this Bible. But, you could sure do it. I tell you, I’d put in
there: the blowing of the trumpet.
When they went around Jericho and, on
the seventh day and the seventh time, and they blew the trumpet and the walls
of Jericho fell down. You ought to sing that song again. Don't you
have a song like that? Do you have any trumpet setting? If you
don't, it's not Scriptural. It's not a Scriptural song.
They fell at the blowing of the
trumpets—trumpet of God. They blew the trumpet at the beginning of a new
year, a new day, a new hope. They blew the trumpets at the great
jubilee. They blew the trumpets when they went into battle, marching for
God. And, the voice I heard behind me was as a trumpet—Oh, the trumpet of
God—and, the dead in Christ rising first, and we who are alive caught up
together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Now, one or two little things: Who are
these who are raised? And, who are these who are translated? Not
all the dead. It's a selective, elective, resurrection: Only those who
hear the trumpet of God and the voice of the archangel and the shout of command
from God, whose hearts have been turned to the Lord. And, the rest do not
hear. They're not raised. They lie in a Christless grave.
That's here tonight, do you hear?
Can you hear? Does the voice of God speak to your heart? Does the
Spirit have a way into your soul? Can you hear?
Listen, friend, beloved, if you can hear
the voice of God and the Spirit of God, and you open your heart to the call and
command of God tonight, you'll hear Him again in that great day that He comes
for His saints. But, if you can't hear it now, you won't hear it
then.
God has to do something. And, if
you die and are buried and never have heard and given your heart to the command
of God, when that day comes, one is taken; you'll be left. And, God's
sainted dead arise out of the dust of the ground and you shall stay buried in
the earth until the judgment of the wicked dead, described as the Great White
Throne, in the twentieth chapter of the Revelation:
“O
God, blessed are they who have a part in the first resurrection, in this
resurrection, for upon them the second death shall have no power.”
Do you hear the voice of the Lord?
Do you? Can you hear it? Does He call the shout and command of
God? Then, respond with your life and, someday, you'll respond from the grave,
if you fall before He comes.
A second thing here: Where are we
going? Paul doesn't say. This is just for a certain purpose:
comforting the dead.
“Going to meet the Lord in the
air.” Where we going? Where we going?
Bless
your heart, when He comes, He's coming like a thief in the night: first, to
steal away His jewels. In this earth is the treasure, for it He paid His
life, the pearl of price, and He's coming without announcement, like a thief in
the night, to take away His jewels.
And, Paul says here: “And we meet Him in
the air.” There where the cloud received Him out of their sight, our
beloved dead raised to stand in the presence of their Lord. And, all of
us who abide and remain at that time immortalized, transfigured to meet the
Lord and to stand in his presence.
Then, where we going? Bless
your heart. We're going where Jesus said He'd prepared a place for
us. We're going to glory. We're going to heaven. And, we're
going to sit down and share with our Lord the great Marriage Supper of the
Lamb. We shall be presented. And, the Bible uses the expression “of
a bride adorned in fine linen, clean and white, without spot and without
blemish.” We shall be presented to Jesus as a bride living by His side,
loved in His sight. And, when I think of that, glory, glory, glory.
I know some blind and, when they're presented to Jesus, they can see.
And, I know some deaf and, when they're presented, they can hear. And, I
know some crippled, contorted and lame, and, when they're presented, they can
walk. And, I know some poor and, when they are presented, they will be
rich. And, I know some sinners—mostly me—and, when we poor lost sinners
are presented, we shall be washed clean and white in the blood of the
Lamb.
Oh, glory, glory, glory! We're not
waiting for the worm. We're not tarrying for death. We are not
looking forward just to the grave, the night and the dark. But, we, in our Lord
and in His name, we're lifting up our eyes and turning our faces to the
glorious sunrising, when the Lord shall be king of the earth and when we shall
reign by His side.
Oh, Jesus, blessed, blessed
Savior! And, that's just the beginning. And, if we had about five
more hours here tonight, we'd talk about what else we're going to do when we go
to be with the Lord.
How could a man say nay to Jesus?
“I want no part in it. I want no share in that kingdom. I'd rather
die the death of the damned. I'd rather fill a Christless grave.
I'd rather live my life outside His church. I want to be an unrepentant,
an unbeliever. I want to say no to Jesus and no to this church and no to
this preacher. I want to say no to the invitation tonight. I want
to go out this door lost and damned and ruined. I want to die.
Oh, no, no, no. That's Satan’s
perversion of our minds and our hearts.
My
brother and my friend, let us live in His sight. Let us open our hearts
to His voice of invitation. Let us look up and trust.
Oh, tonight, tonight, somebody—you,
would you give your heart to Jesus, entrust your life in His gracious
hands? “Lord, if it's tonight, I'm ready. If it's at dawn, I'm
ready. If it's at midday or at twilight again, O God, I am ready even, so
come, Lord Jesus.”
Would you, tonight? Somebody—you,
put your life in the hand of Jesus, Somebody—you. “I've already
been saved, Preacher. I've trusted Him as my Savior. Best I know
how, I've followed the Lord in repentance, in faith, in baptism. I want
to be in His church here.”
Would you come? Is there a
family—you? “Here I am, Pastor. Here we
come.” Down these stairwells, at the front, at the
back, in this great congregation on the lower floor, somebody--you, tonight,
tonight, “I take Jesus as my Savior.” Or, “Tonight I'm placing my
life in the fellowship of this church.”
Would you make it now? On the
first note of this first stanza, into that aisle and down here to the front:
“Here I am, Pastor, and here I come, tonight. I make it now”—while we
stand, and while we sing.
.